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Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) and Dubai-based developer Damac International have announced that The Delmore, a 12-story oceanfront ultra-luxury development at 8777 Collins Avenue in Surfside, just north of Miami Beach, recently secured a foundation permit, enabling the next phase of construction, the piling works, to move forward. Sales for the swanky complex’s 37 fully furnished condos—billed as “mansions in the sky”—launched earlier this year, with prices for the residences starting at $15 million and averaging at an eye-popping $40 million. Damac, which acquired the 1.8-acre parcel in May 2022 for $120 million, had submitted two different ZHA-produced designs to Surfside planning authorities for approval in 2023.
For most mid-rise residential projects, even coastal ones, foundation permitting might seem routine. Considering the history of the site, though, the development is a noteworthy one. On June 24, 2021, the 40-year-old Champlain Towers South condo tower partially collapsed, killing 98 people in what was one of the deadliest non-deliberate building collapses in U.S. history. In 2023, Federal investigators with the National Institute of Standards and Technology announced a preliminary finding that the tower, designed by William Friedman, did not meet building code when completed in 1981; the federal investigation into the exact cause of the collapse is expected to conclude in 2026.
As noted in a press release from ZHA, deep-soil mixing (DSM) is currently underway at the former Champlain Towers South site and is expected to finish this fall. “DSM avoids the vibration and water table impacts of traditional pile driving, enabling real-time quality control during mixing, as well as ensuring the long-term structural integrity of beachfront builds,” the London-based firm explains. Geotechnical contractor Keller North America has now completed more the 30 percent of the DSM work “to stabilize the soil and create a watertight perimeter optimal for the site’s coastal conditions.”
Image courtesy Damac International
A 2024 study led by scientists at the University of Miami in the wake of the Surfside tragedy, found that 35 waterfront condo and hotel towers built on Miami-Dade County’s vulnerable barrier islands—including many new buildings and multiple towers in Surfside—sunk at a steady clip between 2016–2023, some as many as three inches. The main culprit? Vibrations caused by construction activity. Researchers concluded that although subsidence, the process in which the ground sinks or settles, is alarmingly common in Surfside, it was not the reason for the 2021 building collapse.
Despite the unprecedented tragedy that rocked Surfside in 2021 and the ongoing threat of subsidence, the tiny coastal community—once sleepy, now part of the so-called “Billionaire’s Triangle”—has emerged as a hotbed for high-end condo developments designed by the likes of Renzo Piano, Antonio Citterio, and Arquitectonica, and now, ZHA. A 2021 lawsuit alleged that pile-driving and construction from 2016-2019 of Piano’s 18-story Eighty Seven Park, just next door to Champlain Towers South but not subject to the 12-story height limit, was partly responsible for the collapse. The class-action suit, filed by relatives of those who died in the collapse, was settled in May 2022 for $997 million; parties associated with Eighty Seven Park, including developer Terra Group, settled for $400 million of the total sum.
Image courtesy Damac International
Wrapped in shell-shaped fins, the characteristically curvy Delmore features an expressive facade informed by the midcentury Miami Modern movement, a fitness center and landscaped tropical gardens, and a rooftop sundeck that includes a 75-foot-long glass-bottomed pool spanning the complex’s north and south wings at 125-feet above the ground (a first of its kind in Miami). Most of the floors contain just two units, while the top two floors of each wing both have just one residence. All units have sculptural, wraparound balconies that “define the large outdoor living areas of each residence and also maintain privacy,” details ZHA. “Never aligning vertically to avoid repetition, the curvilinear forms of these balconies reference the region’s architectural history and continue the fluid design language of the development.” ODP Architecture & Design is serving as local architecure partner on the project.
The Delmore is ZHA’s second Miami-area commission. One Thousand Museum, a 62-story residential tower in downtown Miami, opened in 2019, three years after Zaha Hadid suffered a fatal heart attack at the age of 65. She was in Miami at the time of her sudden death. With the path cleared for the next stage of construction, Delmore is expected to reach completion in 2029. Final conceptual designs for a memorial honoring the lives lost in the 2021 building collapse, which will be near the Delmore development site at 88th Street and Collins Avenue, received final approval from the town of Surfside in March.