Surfside collapse victims’ families tell developer: Memorial needs to go ‘on the site’

Family members of Champlain Towers South victims met for the first time Monday with representatives of the property’s new owners, urging them to honor the victims with a permanent memorial located at least partially where the building once stood — a request the developers seemed reluctant to heed.

“The most important thing for us as families is an allocation on the site where they were killed,” said Martin Langesfeld, whose sister Nicole Langesfeld and brother-in-law Luis Sadovnic died in the catastrophic collapse that killed 98 people in June 2021.

“Are you willing to work together to put something on the actual land where lives were taken?” Langesfeld asked the developers during the meeting at Surfside Town Hall.

Jeffery Rossely, a representative for Dubai-based DAMAC Properties, said the company was prepared to work with the families and consider their ideas for a memorial but suggested it would be difficult to accommodate the request for a memorial within the former Champlain Towers South footprint.

“We have to look after our shareholders’ interests at the same time,” Rossely said. “When you start asking for 50 feet or 70 feet into the site, that becomes something which is very difficult for us to look at.”

Langesfeld, who is part of a seven-member committee of victims’ family members that town officials voted to form earlier this year, said families would like to see a memorial extend nearly 50 feet beyond the site’s northern property line near 88th Street so that it covers some of the area where victims’ apartments stood.

But Surfside Mayor Shlomo Danzinger said the developers, who have said they plan to build ultra-luxury condos, can’t be expected to give up part of their property for a memorial without getting something in return.

Danzinger floated an arrangement under which the developers would give up about 10 feet near their northern property line and the town would modify its setback requirements to the south or west, essentially shifting the footprint of the new project.

Rossely, the DAMAC representative, said the developers would be open to considering that type of deal.

“We’re willing to work outside the lines in our code to give them more area,” Danzinger said, noting that such a deal would first require approval by the Town Commission.

The commission voted in January to designate 88th Street, which abuts the Champlain property, as the site of a future memorial. That is still the plan, according to Danzinger, who said Monday’s meeting was called to start a discussion about whether the developers would allow a memorial to extend onto their property.

Surfside officials placed temporary banners with the names of the 98 victims on a fence that surrounds the collapse site earlier this summer, expecting DAMAC would remove the fence along with the banners after it formally acquired the land. The banners were still being displayed as of Monday.

Several potential memorial sites have been discussed in the 15 months since the tragedy. Last September, the town commission rejected an idea to place a memorial at the former Champlain Towers South site and sell the Surfside community center to a developer as part of a land swap.

Monday’s meeting likely marked the start of many months of conversation between the developers, collapse victims’ family members and Surfside officials. Rossely said DAMAC has yet to design the new building and predicted construction would begin in early 2024.

DAMAC was the lone bidder for the two-acre oceanfront site at 8777 Collins Ave., where half of Champlain Towers South came suddenly crashing down on June 24, 2021. The developer finalized the purchase in late July for $120 million, some of which will help pay $96 million to Champlain condo owners under a settlement agreement.

DAMAC’s real estate brokers told the Miami Herald last month that the developer paid an initial $16 million deposit and added another $34 million deposit towards the total offer figure after completing a series of engineering surveys and testing at the site.

On Monday, Rossely suggested the developers have “crossed off” potential concerns about building on the site after testing its below-ground conditions. Investigators have conducted extensive testing and collected debris from the site as they try to determine the causes of the collapse, but findings in a sweeping federal probe likely won’t be released until 2024.