Dubai Developer to Buy Site of Florida Condo Collapse for $120M

Damac Properties of Dubai will purchase for $120M the Miami Beach-area oceanfront property that was the site of a condo tower collapse in June that killed 98 people.

Damac was the only bidder to submit an offer by a court-imposed deadline of last Friday for the site of the June 24 collapse of one of the Champlain Towers apartments. According to the Associated Press, Damac earlier this month raised its cash deposit from $16M to $50M on the 1.8-acre beachfront site. The property was listed by Avison Young. 

Damac, founded by billionaire Hussain Sajwani, plans to build a luxury residential project on the site. The company has developments throughout the Middle East and in London.

Michael Goldberg, a court-appointed receiver for the Champlain Towers South condo association, filed a motion on Friday confirming that only one offer had been made for the property. An action that had been scheduled to take place yesterday was canceled.

In Dubai, Damac has developed several high-profile projects, including Aykon City, a cluster of four residential towers that includes an entertainment and retail place, the 63-story Paramount Tower Hotel and Damac Towers, which includes 1,200 residential units.

Earlier this month, families of victims of the building collapse reached a $997M settlement with local officials, developers of an adjacent building and others they said were responsible for the collapse of the 40-year-old, 12-story oceanfront tower that collapsed during the early hours of June 24.

Developers are targeting hundreds of aging condo apartment buildings in Miami Beach for acquisition so they can tear them down and build new luxury residential towers, zeroing in on towers approaching a 40-year deadline to recertify structural integrity.

Florida law requires that 80 percent of condo unit owners agree to a sale before a condo building can change hands, often forcing developers to go through a tedious process known as condo termination, effectively negotiating the purchase of each unit with its owner.

The collapse in Surfside of one of two beachfront Champlain Towers, which were erected in 1981 and found to be in need of significant structural repairs, drew attention to a 2020 Florida International Survey of the coast which reported that much of the ground under Miami Beach is slowly sinking.

According to WSJ, hundreds of apartment buildings, representing more than two-thirds of the inventory in the Miami area, are either approaching or more than 40 years old.

After the Surfside collapse, numerous Florida lawmakers said they would enact tougher inspection requirements for beachfront apartment buildings as well as retrofit funding requirements for condo owners, but no action was taken before the state legislature session ended last month.