Families want monument at Surfside collapse site
SURFSIDE, Fla. – Families and friends of some of the 98 people who died in the partial collapse of Champlain Towers South are demanding the site be reserved for a monument.
Flanked by community and religious leaders, teary-eyed speakers at a news conference on Thursday clutched photos of loved ones only yards away from the excavated pit where federal investigators continue processing evidence to determine what caused the 12-story, 136-unit oceanfront condominium complex to fall on June 24.
“Nobody deserves to go to sleep and never wake up, crushed by their own home,” said Vicky Btesh, a newlywed whose 26-year-old husband, Andres Levine, was killed in the collapse. “We do not build over dead people.”
The news conference took place only hours after a hearing at which Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Michael Hanzman announced the property at 8777 Collins Ave. would go up for auction in February or March to raise as much money as possible for unit owners and their heirs.
“Now, the numbers are the numbers, and the claims in this case, both economic and injury and death could easily approach or exceed a billion dollars,” Hanzman said at the hearing. “So, absent extremely viable claims against extremely solvent defendants, this insurance money and the value of this property may be the primary sources for compensating these victims.”
Damac Properties, a Dubai-based developer founded by billionaire Hussain Sajwani, on Friday signed a contract to purchase the lot for $120 million, according to The Real Deal. While other offers will be considered until the auction date, the site reported, Damac is expected to make a $16 million deposit, $150,000 of which is nonrefundable.
But some families are less concerned about money than respecting the “sacred ground” where their loved ones perished, said Rabbi Lisa Shrem.
“Most of their remains are on the site behind me,” said Shrem, whose best friend, Estelle Hedaya, was the final victim identified in the collapse. Shrem pointed out that, in Judaism, it is not only the soul that is sacred, but the body as well.
Martin Langesfeld, whose sister Nicole Langesfeld, 26, and brother-in-law Luis Sadovnic, 25, were killed in the collapse, said it took three weeks for his family to get back “portions and a percentage of a body.”
“We ask for honor, we ask for respect, we ask for a monument to be built on this site and not one inch away,” he said.
“This land will forever be their resting place,” he said.
He and the other families in attendance were also against a proposed land swap, which would trade the collapse site for a superior property five blocks north where the Surfside Community Center now stands.
That idea has already been shot down by town leaders and the preponderance of community members who have spoken out, said Surfside Commissioner Eliana Salzhauer.
Still, owners who used Champlain Towers South as a second or vacation home, and did not lose anyone they loved in the collapse, might be more focused on maximizing profits than honoring the dead, she said.