A letter from Miami Champlain Towers condominium had warned since April of the building’s collapse

A letter sent last April by the president of the Champlain Towers South Condominium Association, Jean Wodnicki, warned that the damage to the parking lot located in the basement of the building had “considerably worsened” since an inspection had been carried out about two and a half years earlier.

In the letter too reference was made to the deterioration of the building’s concrete, which was “accelerating”.

“We have argued, debated and argued for years, and will continue to do so for years to come, as different elements come into play.”said the letter.

In the seven-page text, Wodnicki detailed what were the most important repairs that needed to be made to the building, after the fact that in 2018, after hiring the engineering firm Morabito Consultants to perform a building inspection, the result showed that there was a “major error” in the design of the building’s concrete columns, already which presented a collapse in the basement, where the parking lot is, under the structure.

Because of this, he warned that if this issue was not resolved in the “In the near future, the extent of concrete deterioration would increase exponentially.”

Thirty months after this check, Wodnicki said in his letter that “in fact the damage observable in the parking lot has worsened considerably” from the first check.

“As you can see with the naked eye, cracked concrete means the rebar that holds it together is rusting and deteriorating below the surface.”, warned Wodnicki.

The condo’s letter suggested that the millions of dollars needed for repairs could have been a source of frustration among residents.

Some neighbors assured local media such as USA today, were aware of the results of the 2018 inspections. they held votes and assemblies to discuss the urgency of repairing the “significant structural damage” that has affected the building since then. However, when they discussed the costs of the arrangements, which for that year were about $ 7 million, there were differences and conflicts that did not allow an agreement to be reached.

Subsequently, a new board took office which tried to reach consensus with all points of view to come to a solution, but they wasted a lot of time, about a year, trying to fix the damage indicated in the report.

“They had been talking about it for a while.”said Marta Castro, a resident of the east tower of the Champlain Tower, who says she often spoke with neighbors of the collapsed building. “The few people I spoke to were concerned about the financial aspects”.

Castro, former member of the board of directors of the owners association of the Champlain East tower, said the south tower still looked messy, with cracks in the concrete that were obviously visible, in addition to noticing that it needed maintenance on the paint. She said she was friends with several people in the collapsed tower who are missing and probably dead, she lamented.

“Since a lot of the required concrete / waterproofing work is underground, we have to raise almost the entire ground level of the lot to access areas that need repairs.Wodnicki wrote in his letter dated April 9.

Warned that “When doing concrete restoration work, it is impossible to know the extent of damage to the underlying rebar until the concrete breaks.”

“Often the damage is more extensive than can be determined by inspecting the surface”, added.

Wodnicki concluded with a note in which he said that I hoped the letter would help residents better understand why a future assessment would be so expensive., and said some residents thought “we are overvaluing”.

“Your Board of Directors is working very hard to bring this project to fruition”, he said, adding that they had consulted with a variety of job-related professionals such as engineers, accountants and lawyers.

“We have already covered a lot of ground to get the project started… We have discussed, debated and argued for years, and will continue to do so for years as different elements come into play.” 75 days later, the building collapsed.

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