Appointed receiver Michael Goldberg, who oversaw the $188 million liquidation of con-man Scott Rothstein's empire, said he has secured $50 million so far from insurance companies — $31 million from Great American, the primary insurer.
But Champlain Towers South with its 136 units was estimated to be worth $100 million when it fell.
"The property was dramatically underinsured," Hanzman said. So "$31 million will not come close to building that structure."
No, the owners knew about the problems-- and balked at the price tag for needed repairs. No insurance is going to payout on this -- not for what they are seeking.
You can't wait until life isn't hard anymore before you decide to be happy.
Yeah, I'm puzzled by that too. The full quote is as follows:
My first reaction was that when the judge said "underinsured," he simply meant that there wasn't enough coverage for the readily foreseeable claims in light of the death toll. I don't think he meant it a criticism, as people did when they discussed the fact that there was only one million dollars in liability coverage for the West Texas Fertilizer plant that blew up in 2013.Judge Michael Hanzman, who made an impassioned speech to open Friday's hearing, indicated that property claims would trump claims of wrongful death and injury, saying the building was underinsured to compensate all victims at the present time. There are going to be limited assets available to compensate everyone for property loss, as well as for the loss of life," he said.
Just because the market value of the condo -- and I guess he's referring to the sum of the market value of the individual units -- is $100 million, it doesn't follow that it would cost $100 million to rebuild it. The condo already owns the land.But Champlain Towers South with its 136 units was estimated to be worth $100 million when it fell.
"The property was dramatically underinsured," Hanzman said. So "$31 million will not come close to building that structure."
According to the lawyer representing survivors and families who lost loved ones, he's already secured $31 million of the $50 million in policies. The $31 million is from the property's primary insurer. Work is still in process with the other insurance agencies.
Interesting.Suranis wrote: ↑Sun Jul 18, 2021 5:13 pm I found this general guys calculator for how moch it would cost to build something. It says the cost varies by art of the US but the average is about 10 mill
https://www.fixr.com/costs/build-apartment
https://www.fixr.com/costs/build-condominium
So triple that for 300 units, which is 36 million (lots of reasons why it might, or might not, scale up on a straight line, but we'll ignore that). With hefty premiums for building in an existing premium neighborhood and for the additional costs involved in the inevitable toughening of Miami's building standards post-Surfside, it's easy to see how the cost could reach at least 60-70 million.The high cost is $12 million for an upscale condominium complex with 100 units and shared amenities in an upcoming urban area.
Not that I've seen.
From the article:
This partially explains why the condo association didn't vote on the special assessment in 2019/20. Unless the condo association could secure a loan, there's no point in approving a special assessment fee.The lack of reserves complicated the condo association's efforts to secure money for repairs. Another presentation to residents in December 2020 said that "two major HOA [Homeowner Associations] lenders declined us" for loans.
The loans were declined because the condo association was in a "higher risk category" due to its relatively low monthly maintenance fees and the lack of funds saved in the reserves, according to the presentation.
"We should have a lot more money in the bank for lenders to be comfortable," the presentation stated. "We have not done reserve studies or set enough reserve money aside to prepare for this day."
CNN —
The last remaining missing person from the Champlain Towers South building collapse in Surfside, Florida, was identified Monday, ending a month-long search and recovery operation.
Estelle Hedaya was the remaining victim who had not yet been identified, leaving her family in limbo until today.
“It was obviously tough to hear directly, but I can definitely see and feel the sense of relief [my parents] got knowing my sister can rest in peace,” Ikey Hedaya, Estelle’s brother, told CNN. “This month has been excruciating to say the least.”
A section of the Champlain Towers South condo building crumbled on June 24 as many residents slept, an as-yet unexplained tragedy that shattered a small coastal community in South Florida.
After weeks of combing through a pile of metal and concrete looking for victims, Miami Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said 98 victims have now been identified, including 97 victims who were recovered from the collapse and one person who died in the hospital. Ninety-eight families have been notified, and all 97 people for whom there was a missing persons report have been recovered.
Is that just the photo, or does that one building look like it's leaning?
x5
Looks like it may be the lens and the fact that it is a rather low-level shot with a slight rise in the ground level (a hump), which might through off perspective.Slim Cognito wrote: ↑Tue Aug 10, 2021 6:44 pm it might be an optical illusion, but the third column of balconies from the right don't seem to sync up with the second column of balconies from the right.
Edit: spelling oopsie!After the deadly catastrophe at a high-rise beachfront condo building in Surfside, Fla., in June, suspicion quickly focused on a pool deck outside, in part because years of deterioration had left it badly damaged. But a mystery remained: How could the partial collapse of a patio have brought down much of a 12-story structure that had stood for 40 years?
A Washington Post examination — based on witness accounts, photography, construction plans, interviews with engineers and a computer simulation using a 3-D model of the complex — explores that question. The review identifies possible sequences of events where the collapse of the pool deck into an underground parking garage at Champlain Towers South could have weakened key columns, triggering the wider disaster.
Using the simulation, a team led by Khalid M. Mosalam, an engineering professor at the University of California at Berkeley, found that an initial deck collapse that extended beyond those key columns, where the deck joined the building’s facade, could have overloaded the columns and caused them to buckle. Mosalam’s team created its 3-D model and simulation for The Post.
Other engineers outlined a second possible scenario involving a less extensive collapse of the pool deck. In this sequence, the deck remained attached to the columns even as it collapsed, tugging or twisting them and the surrounding beams until the columns fell.
Both theories are consistent with a growing number of witness accounts that the pool deck collapsed first. The cause of that failure remains unknown. Some engineers pointed to water corrosion-related issues identified there in 2018, but others said such damage alone was unlikely to have caused the collapse.
Some suggested that a yet-to-be-discovered problem in the parking garage — or even deeper underground — could have brought down the pool deck and possibly the building. Investigations of the disaster, which killed 98 people, are advancing on multiple fronts and are expected to take many months.
Allyn E. Kilsheimer, a longtime engineer leading an investigation of the collapse for Surfside, told The Post that he is looking at several potential collapse sequences resulting from the pool deck failure, including the ones engineers proposed to The Post.
“We’re looking at every possibility,” said Kilsheimer, who added that investigators are “researching 20 or 30 things” that could have caused the initial deck collapse.
The Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Miami-Dade Police Department are also investigating the disaster.
Joe DiPompeo, the president of the Structural Engineering Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers, said that both theories put forward by the engineers are “plausible” accounts of how a failure in the deck could have led to the building collapse.
DiPompeo and other engineers cautioned that nothing will be conclusive until investigators finish analyzing the wreckage, which has been removed for examination.
Mosalam, the director of Berkeley’s Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center and a fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers, stressed that his simulation depicted a “possible sequence of events” and that it does not provide “the definite answer we all are looking for.”
New footage released by a team of federal investigators on Wednesday offered more evidence of overcrowded concrete reinforcement and extensive corrosion in Champlain Towers South — issues first raised by engineers as part of a Miami Herald investigation into the structural integrity and design of the building, which collapsed in June, killing 98.
The footage was released by the National Institute of Standards and Technology on the same day it announced the team that will conduct its five-pronged investigation of the disaster, which will be led by Judith Mitrani-Reiser, a Cuban-born engineer who grew up in Miami. Still frames of debris pictured in the video reveal densely packed steel reinforcement in various elements of the building, as well as extensive corrosion where one column met the building’s foundation.
“The corrosion on the bottom of that column is astronomical,” said the Herald’s consulting engineer, Dawn Lehman, professor of structural engineering at the University of Washington. Lehman said the amount of corrosion should have been obvious and documented as part of the 40-year inspection that was underway when the building collapsed on June 24.
The Surfside Condo Was Flawed and Failing. Here’s a Look Inside.
A Times investigation shows how faulty design and construction could have contributed to the collapse of the building in South Florida.
By Anjali Singhvi, Mike Baker, Weiyi Cai, Mika Gröndahl and Karthik Pantanjali
Sept. 1, 2021
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... lapse.html
If there had been more, wouldn't they have been even closer together? Or am I missing the point they're trying to make?There were too few, too close together....
