The mayor of Sunny Isles, in Miami, said the city is conducting a review of a beachfront area filled with luxury high-rises, including two named after President-elect Donald Trump, after a study by the University of Miami found they are singing to an "unexpected extent."
Mayor Larisa Svechin assured that the buildings are structurally sound and that authorities are "100 percent confident that everything is safe." She added that the review is aimed at reassuring residents or visitors who might have doubts about the issue. Inspections of the buildings are up to date and they were built "by the best of the best," she told the Miami Herald.
"We will absolutely make sure that anything that has been approved by the city of Sunny Isles, in any capacity, any way, we will take a look at again - only because we can, and for the sake of making sure that our residents feel 110% safe," Svechin added.
The high-rises, home to tens of thousands of residents, include prominent luxury properties such as Trump International, Trump Tower III, Surf Club Towers, and the Porsche Design Tower.
Using satellite technology, the researchers documented vertical displacements of two to eight centimeters between 2016 and 2023, with some buildings showing continuous subsidence. Approximately 70% of new buildings in Sunny Isles Beach, which is known as a hotspot for luxury developments, are affected.
"The discovery of the extent of subsidence hotspots along the South Florida coastline was unexpected," Farzaneh Aziz Zanjani, the study's lead author, said in a press release, emphasizing a "need for ongoing monitoring and a deeper understanding of the long-term implications for these structures."
John Pistorino, who sits on Florida's engineering board, said he considers the buildings to be "fairly stables." They are "designed to be, basically, flooded underwater, the foundation systems and all that," he added.
Researchers linked Miami's fragile coastal geology and construction activities to the buildings' subsidence. The region sits on top of porous limestone interbedded with sandy layers, which were shown to reconfigure due to a collection of factors, including construction vibrations, groundwater pumping, tidal flows, and heavy structural loads.
Notably, the study revealed that "majority of the sinking buildings are new structures built after 2014," suggesting that subsidence is a "consequence of their own construction." The sinking of older structures included in the study was also shown to coincide "with nearby construction activities."
Researchers also analyzed buildings in Surfside, the site of the tragic Champlain Towers collapse in 2021, which resulted in more than 90 deaths. The results showed notable subsidence in the area, but no precursory movements were detected at the Champlain site itself. Although, the results were deemed as "inconclusive because the section of the structure where the collapse initiated can not be imaged from space," reads a passage of the study.
The scientists pointed out that South Florida high-rises are designed to undergo several tens of centimeters of settlement of the entire structure. However, uneven settlement is of concern, as it could lead to structural damage. The study did not look at whether that scenario is taking place.
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