News4Jax is learning more about the condition of local high-rise buildings after the deadly collapse of a condo in Surfside.
During a city council meeting Monday night, Jacksonville Beach officials said they’re now checking on aging buildings to make sure they’ve been inspected on schedule.
On Tuesday, News4Jax obtained an internal email from Jacksonville Beach City Manager Mike Staffopoulos which confirmed that the only time a structural evaluation is required for buildings over 75-feet in the city is when there’s a major renovation planned.
MORE | Florida condo managers take notice of renovations at Jacksonville Beach high-rise
But, Staffopoulos said, the fire marshal and building manager for the city are taking some action in response to the Surfside collapse.
“I did get a chance to talk to the fire marshal, and the fire marshal made it a point of going out and talking to the buildings that met the criteria of requirement for a structural analysis within the 40-year window,” Staffopoulos said during the Monday meeting. “So, he’s already taken it upon himself to go knock on the doors of each of those buildings and say, ‘Hey, if you’re over 40, you have to have the report.’”
News4Jax is still working to confirm with the city that the 40-year reinspection rule applies outside of Broward and Miami-Dade counties but there soon could be additional state or federal laws after the disaster in Surfside.
Six days after the partial collapse of a high-rise building in Surfside, Miami-Dade County already dispatched building inspectors to check similar structures, according to the Miami-Herald.
But, as Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz said, ocean-front high-rise buildings aren’t exclusive to South Florida.
“You know we have structures like this all the way up the coastline, all the way up the coastline of the United States,” said Wasserman-Schultz.
In Duval County, five residential buildings are over 100-feet tall and more than 30-years old: Pelican Point, Pablo Towers, The Waterford, Ocean 14 and Seascape.
News4Jax already took a look at the ongoing renovation work at Ocean 14, and Tuesday, we learned Pablo Towers, a 48-year-old apartment building, was last inspected in 2014 and passed with a 99-out-of-100, according to the building’s management.
The remaining three Jacksonville Beach high-rises are managed by First Residential Services which has not yet returned our multiple calls and emails.
While Broward and Miami-Dade counties have rules requiring buildings to be inspected after 40-years, and every 10 years after, a search through Florida’s building code did not reveal any such rule on a statewide level.
However, Wasserman-Schultz hinted at some potential federal legislation to get the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) involved.
“What NIST will be able to help do is, they’re a fact-finding, not a fault-finding agency, and a long-term investigation of theirs would give us a chance, for me as a member of congress, to be able to adopt changes in federal law that will help them make sure that when structures are built, that something like this could never happen again,” Wasserman-Schultz said.