{"id":315787,"date":"2026-06-22T16:46:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T16:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/315787\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T16:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T16:46:10","slug":"condos-are-for-sale-at-the-site-of-floridas-surfside-tragedy-not-one-has-sold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/315787\/","title":{"rendered":"Condos Are for Sale at the Site of Florida\u2019s Surfside Tragedy. Not One Has Sold."},"content":{"rendered":"

On a rare, undeveloped stretch of white sand along the South\u00a0Florida<\/a>\u00a0coast, a Dubai developer saw promise.<\/p>\n

Damac Properties, one of the most prolific developers in the Gulf, hired Zaha Hadid Architects, the renowned London-based design firm, to create \u201c37 mansions in the sky.\u201d The luxury condo tower would feature a suspended glass-bottom rooftop pool, and a 20,000-square-foot meditation garden. Units would start at $15 million.<\/p>\n

Martin Langesfeld\u00a0looked at the same space on the ocean\u2019s edge and saw something entirely different: the site of his sister\u2019s death. She died along with her husband and 96 other people when the Surfside condo tower they were in\u00a0collapsed five years ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s prime real estate but it came at the cost of 98 lives,\u201d Langesfeld said.<\/p>\n

The collapse of Champlain Towers South marks its fifth anniversary on Wednesday. It was one of the deadliest structural failures in U.S. history. The 12-story beachfront building fell in a matter of seconds in the middle of the night, a sudden rush of concrete that crushed sleeping families. Many Florida<\/a> developers viewed rebuilding on the site as too sensitive.<\/p>\n

In 2021, a state court ordered the condo association\u2019s receiver to sell the land to help fund a $1 billion\u00a0settlement for families of the victims<\/a>. The only firm to bid on the site was Damac, paying $120 million for the roughly 1.8 acres.<\/p>\n

A view of the Surfside condo tower site in 2022, a year after the collapse.Tribune News Service via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Since then, the developer has struggled to gain traction for the project, the firm\u2019s first in the U.S. A year and a half after Damac launched the sales process, not a single unit has sold.<\/p>\n

The Dubai firm has made inquiries about selling the site, according to people familiar with the matter. A Damac spokesman said the property isn\u2019t currently for sale. The firm is now looking to find a partner to handle the day-to-day development going forward, he said.<\/p>\n

The site\u2019s tragic history was always going to make rebuilding a challenge, and Damac made missteps when interacting with grieving families, those families and a former city official said. But the Dubai developer had a number of other stumbles, including mistakes in the firm\u2019s marketing and business approach.<\/p>\n

A rendering of the proposed condo development project.BINYAN STUDIOS<\/p>\n

Damac paused construction activity in February. The company said it hasn\u2019t yet secured the insurance needed to continue construction. That likely reflects in part Damac\u2019s inexperience in South Florida and its lack of a local partner that typically eases the path to securing insurance, insurance brokers said.<\/p>\n

Damac\u2019s chairman,\u00a0Hussain Sajwani, considered the Surfside site a rare opening to break into the U.S.\u2014and at a great price, according to people familiar with the matter.<\/p>\n

His proposed $1.6 billion development sits on some of South Florida\u2019s most valuable beachfront real estate, where cranes rise in every direction for dozens of new luxury condo towers.<\/p>\n

Damac Properties Chairman Hussain Sajwani with President-elect Donald Trump in January 2025.Scott Olson\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Surfside boasts the most elevated condo prices in Miami-Dade, with the top 5% of sales at or above $31 million in the first quarter of 2026. That compares with $3.6 million for Miami-Dade County overall, according to data analyzed by economist\u00a0Gay Cororaton\u00a0of the Miami Association of Realtors. Nearby, developer Fort Partners saw so much success with its Four Seasons Surfside project, that it added three other condo buildings.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re one block away and we\u2019re selling at electric prices,\u201d said Fort Partners Chief Executive\u00a0Nadim Ashi, who said he has sold more than $2 billion in residential units in three months alone.<\/p>\n

Families of the deceased in Surfside lobbied Damac to incorporate a memorial on the site, but they were unable to come to an agreement. Instead, relatives secured approvals to build a memorial on a street that abuts the property.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is one of the best sites in Miami\u2014past unfortunate situation notwithstanding,\u201d the Damac spokesman said. \u201cWe are respectful of the past, but confident about the site.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sajwani built his fortune in Dubai selling luxury condos, which fetched as much as $22 million a unit. He launched Damac as Dubai was opening to foreign investors. In 2013, Sajwani landed a licensing deal with the Trump real-estate firm on a Dubai golf club, which anchors the firm\u2019s first large-scale master community development.<\/p>\n

Now, he is developing data centers across the Middle East, Europe and the U.S. At a Mar-a-Lago press conference last year, he announced his first U.S. data-center investment alongside President Trump, pledging a $20 billion commitment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been waiting four years to increase our investments in the U.S. to a very large amount of money,\u201d Sajwani said onstage.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Damac confronted raw feelings in the neighborhood.\u00a0Marianne Meischeid, a former commissioner for the town, said the developer\u2019s own actions stiffened resistance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey just had this haughty attitude, \u2018we\u2019re here, we\u2019re going to get what we want, we\u2019re going to do what we want, and no one\u2019s going to stop us,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The Damac spokesman said: \u201cWe have worked diligently to be collaborative at every stage of this process. We are operating in accordance with the development agreement, which is the approval of the project by the City of Surfside.\u201d<\/p>\n

The site of the collapse in June 2021.Getty Images<\/p>\n

Meischeid, the town commissioner at the time, coordinated a meeting between the victims\u2019 families and the developer. She wanted to bring the families together with\u00a0Jeff Rossely, who has run the development for Damac.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rossely told her Damac could donate a bench and a fountain to commemorate the victims that would be part of a nearby memorial, Meischeid said.<\/p>\n

But when Rossely met with the families, he never brought up the bench or fountain.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really unfortunate,\u201d Meischeid said. \u201cIt just put a deeper divide between the families and the developer.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Damac spokesman said the firm was willing to give up 7 feet into the property line for the memorial.<\/p>\n

The development\u2019s prices may also have been too high for the neighborhood, some brokers said. Damac is asking $5,000 a square foot with an average price tag of $35 million. The average price a square foot for comparable units in the area is about $4,466.<\/p>\n

A representative for Zaha Hadid Architects, which was hired to design the building, said it was \u201cextremely conscious of the tragedy,\u201d adding, \u201cwe worked respectfully to create a building that would be worthy of the site.\u201d<\/p>\n

Discover more stories. Read the latest real estate news at The Wall Street Journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Sign up now<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On a rare, undeveloped stretch of white sand along the South\u00a0Florida\u00a0coast, a Dubai developer saw promise. Damac Properties,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315788,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,111372,7114,1045],"class_list":["post-315787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-syndication","tag-the-wall-street-journal","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}