A study by the University of Miami using satellite imagery to measure how much the land beneath buildings has sunk found that 35 luxury beachfront buildings along the southeast coast of Florida are sinking a lot faster than experts initially anticipated.
The buildings include some ritzy luxury high-rises, including Trump Tower III, Trump International Beach Resort, Porsche Design Tower, and several other high-end condos. And yes, that is Porsche as in the expensive sports car brand.
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Many of these buildings sunk anywhere from 0.8 inches to 3 inches between 2016 and 2023, affecting nearly 70 percent of the buildings in northern and central Sunny Isles Beach, a neighborhood in the North Miami Beach area.
It should be noted that just because the buildings are sinking doesn’t mean they have structural issues or are threatening to collapse like the 2021 Champlain Towers disaster, where 98 people died when a residential building in the Miami Beach neighborhood of Surfside collapsed. However, the Champlain Towers’ collapse is what initially sparked the idea to look into signs of sinking.
They found that the Champlain Towers disaster was not because of the building sinking but because it had fallen into disrepair. In their investigation, however, University of Miami researchers found several buildings along the southeastern coast of Florida were a little stubbier than they used to be.
Signs of sinking can also be found along the coasts of Broward and Palm Beach counties further north. These are buildings housing tens of thousands of residents and tourists, all of which are definitely a few inches shorter than they were just a few years ago, and you already know one of the reasons why. Climate change. Rising sea levels brought on by climate change are eroding the limestone foundation beneath the buildings.
As long as the individual buildings sink evenly, the problem shouldn’t be too bad—for now, at least. Things start to get dicey when one side of the building sinks faster than another. This is called “differential subsistence,” and some common signs of it include cracks in walls, doors and windows that don’t shut as easily as they used to, and frequently malfunctioning utilities. The researchers involved say more needs to be done to figure out if the buildings are sinking evenly or not.
