Residents Allowed to Return to Miami Beach Condo Evacuated Over Safety Concerns – NBC 6 South Florida

Residents of a Miami Beach condominium that was evacuated over an unsafe structure notice last month are being allowed to return, city officials said.

Miami Beach had posted an unsafe structure notice back on Oct. 27 at the Port Royale condominium, a 14-story, 164-unit building at 6969 Collins Avenue.

A structural engineering report prompted the evacuation of the building, which is in the process of undergoing a required 50-year recertification. An engineer discovered that a main support beam identified for repair 10 months ago had shifted and that a crack in the beam had expanded, the report said.

In a letter Friday, the building’s engineer said temporary installation of shoring had been completed and that the building could be reoccupied.

The city verified the conditions Saturday, and the unsafe structure notice was removed, officials said.

The Port Royale is about 1.3 miles south of the Champlain Towers South condo building in Surfside, also on Collins Avenue, where 98 people were killed in a June 2021 collapse.

The disaster at the 12-story oceanfront condo building in Surfside drew the largest non-hurricane emergency response in Florida history, including rescue crews from across the U.S. and as far away as Israel to help local teams search for victims.

Other buildings in South Florida have been evacuated amid similar safety concerns since the Surfside collapse.

The disaster focused scrutiny on the structural integrity of aging condominium towers throughout Florida, especially along its coastlines, and the state has since moved to strengthen laws requiring inspections and periodic recertification of buildings.

Miami-Dade County had required the first recertification only after 40 years and the Surfside building was undergoing that recertification process when it collapsed.

New state rules signed into law in May require buildings to have their first recertification after 30 years, or 25 if they are within 3 miles of the coast, and then every 10 years thereafter.