Welcome to Miami, America’s third tallest city. In the US, only New York and Chicago, home to the very first skyscrapers, have more high-rise buildings than this corner of South Florida. And that’s quite impressive for a place that didn’t have any skyscrapers until the mid80s, and that now has at least a dozen under construction, including its first ever Super Tool.
The building boom paired with the beautiful weather and coastline has given Miami some serious pulling power. From billionaire investors to very famous footballers, it’s become a big draw for wealthy types seeking a new home for themselves, their business, or both. And it’s growing to the point where the area now has the nickname Wall Street South.
But there’s just one concern. A new study from the University of Miami says around 35 of South Florida’s luxury residential buildings by the sea have been sinking. This of course affects thousands of people that live in these buildings. Researchers here in South Florida say this could be happening for a number of reasons.
A recent study has revealed that dozens of these structures appear to be sinking. So, what do Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Citadel hedge fund boss Ken Griffin, and venture capitalist Peter Theel all have in common? True, they all have a lot of money. But the answer we’re looking for is that they’ve all moved to Miami. At the same time, they’ve either expanded their companies in the city, relocated them here entirely, or are seriously considering it.
Thanks to its vibrant lifestyle, pristine beaches, and warm climate all year round, wealthy individuals and the companies they lead have been flocking to South Florida in recent years. It’s probably why this region’s become one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the whole of the US. And let’s not pretend the fact that you don’t have to pay state income tax here isn’t a factor in all of this, too.
Whatever the exact reason, Miami is more popular than ever, creating huge demand for lavish new places to live and work. The problem is space. While Miami might only be slightly behind New York in America’s skyscraper rankings, it’s about eight times smaller by area. That means in order to develop all these new apartments and offices, the only choice is to build upwards.
It’s not hard to understand why this is such an attractive stretch of land for residents, businesses, and developers. But apparently, this flurry of construction has produced some pretty worrying conseq
uences. Researchers at the University of Miami found at least 35 coastal buildings affected by what they call subsidi. Actually, they call it subsidence, but never mind.
What matters is what their study uncovered. That dozens of buildings along the Miami coastline appear to be sinking. And not just by a little bit either. The report claims that over the last decade, more than 30 highrises along Miami’s Barrier Islands have sunk by as much as 8 cm. And that’s long after they were built, which really isn’t supposed to happen.
These towers aren’t limited to one part of the city. They’re spread across Sunny Beach, where the worst cases were found, along with Surfside and Bell Harbor. The buildings listed include some of the newest, most well-known, and not to mention expensive dwellings in the entire city. Porsche Design Tower, the Ritz Carlton Residences, Trump Tower 3, all of them have been identified.
And the most recently built structures since 2014 have shown some of the most alarming results. Now, you’ll probably be familiar with some of those names unless you’ve never heard of one of the world’s biggest hotel brands or the current US president. It’s that first one that’s arguably the most interesting, though. Completed in 2016, it got a lot of attention, including from us at the B1M.
All because it had three elevators for cars in the core of the building so residents could drive into their apartments. As for who those homeowners are, well, they’re all people with a massive net worth, but one in particular really stands out. Football superstar Lionel Messi. So, where has all this information come from? It’s all come from some very smart people down at the University of Miami working in collaboration with the University of Houston and German research center GFZ.
They used some cuttingedge tech to make their findings which were published in the Earth and Space Science Journal at the end of 2024. Professor Folk Amalong is the senior author of the report and was shocked to discover what came up when his team began investigating the buildings. We were surprised.
Yes, I’m since uh 20 years here looking at at subsidance all over the world and I didn’t even bother to really look in Miami because I didn’t really expect it. Yes. Because we thought it’s very stable but um it is not as stable as we thought. So, why is this happening? Well, after going through the data, the team came up with a number of hypotheses.
And as you might have guessed, they’re all to do with what lies beneath the ground. You see, the geology of this region is a little unusual. Beneath these skyscrapers, you’ll find a subsoil made up of porous limestone mixed with layers of sand. Cleverly called Miami limestone or oolite. It’s made from fossils of coral and other marine life.
And as this map shows, it can only be found in this specific part of Florida. According to the research, the weight of all the new buildings and the vibrations caused by their construction may have led to what’s called creep defamation. That’s where a solid material like those sandy particles begin to deform or shift after a period of prolonged stress.
If that’s been happening underneath the affected buildings, it could have compromised their structural stability. But that isn’t the only possible reason. The removal of groundwater during the construction of those skyscrapers may have led to sand grains being rearranged as a result. Then there’s the process of injecting storm water into the ground after heavy rainfall.
It’s pretty common practice in Miami, but in Amalong’s opinion, it isn’t a good idea in a city built on this kind of rock. Limestone dissolves if you add fresh water. And um the mixture of fresh water and um salt water is particularly corrosive. The rates of corrosions corrosion or dissolution it’s very it’s very low but maybe if you have a heavy building on top of it that um that matters.
So this is um also a possible explanation. So basically understanding ground conditions when you’re working with a big old bit of real estate is really important. But as I’ve seen on so many other projects, getting the finances wrong can also leave you with a sinking feeling. I know how difficult it can be to keep all this stuff under control.
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Now, let’s get back to Miami. What made it relevant for a space science publication is because the data in this study was taken from satellite imagery obtained via a very clever method. It’s called interpherometric synthetic aperture radar or INSAR, which is not an easy thing to remember or say quickly, but basically it’s where they use remote sensors to take an image of an easily measurable part of a building like a a balcony or an air conditioning unit, something like that.
And then over time, they take many more images with satellite. And when they have enough of them, they can look at them, study them, and determine whether or not a building has moved, and identify that movement with millimeter accuracy. Now, it’s important to state at this point that subsidance isn’t rare. In fact, most new buildings will settle slightly following their construction, but it’s not normal for them to sink as much as some of these structures seem to have done, and crucially for it to continue for so long after construction had finished. this
substance wasn’t really um wasn’t really anticipated at least to um the geotechnical report what I saw they talk about um yeah we’re going to get substance for a couple of u months after construction is completed but we see it um yeah 10 years or 10 years or longer. The big question then is how much of a concern is all this? Well, these buildings were designed to settle a little bit after they were built, but that process is supposed to stop, and apparently it hasn’t.
Another important thing to consider is whether they’ve been moving downwards at an even level, which is mostly the case here, but it could have been much worse. If you have even settlement, if the whole building goes down S1, it’s not a big problem. It’s getting a problem if you get differential settlement. That means if you get one part going a little bit more down than the other one, that can cause then damages.
We see some evidence for differential settlement, but um it’s not very much. But of course, this isn’t the first time that issues with Miami residences have made headlines in recent years, including one incident that sadly ended in disaster. The collapse of the Champlain Towers South in 2021 saw 98 people lose their lives.
It sparked an investigation into the structural integrity of apartments and condos across Florida. We need to find out what happened now because, you know, we can’t afford another repeat of of this collapse. After the tragedy, Amalong and his team set out to discover whether subsidance could have been an issue using that same technology.
Although it turned out not to be the case at this particular site, there were some surprising insights that appeared for the rest of the city, which then led to this research being carried out. Now, the discovery might be unusual, but there are other large cities in the US facing a similar situation.
Back in 2023, a study fronted by the US Geological Survey found that New York is sinking by between 1 and 2 mm a year on average. Again, the weight of all the buildings is thought to be one of the main causes, especially in areas with softer soil types. Outside of America, things are far more precarious. The situation has gotten so bad, the government is abandoning the capital and moving it a thousand kilometers away.
Subsidance has reached such a critical point in Jakarta that is part of the reason why Indonesia is now moving its capital entirely. And because Venice has been notoriously sinking for so many years, it had to install a very expensive, complicated, and long delayed flood defense system. Now, Miami isn’t planning anything as drastic as that just yet, but it is still having to act.
That’s because it’s one of the most vulnerable cities in the world when it comes to rising sea levels. According to its latest storm water master plan, $5 billion worth of infrastructure improvements are going to be needed over the next 9 years to protect the city from extreme flooding. That includes replacing seaw walls, building new drainage walls and pump stations, and expanding inlets and pipes.
The city of Miami even has a $400 million bond set aside for investments into climate resilience schemes. But yet more research from the University of Miami has delivered another cruel blow. All of this stuff might still not be enough. Experts say 60% of Miami could be underwater by60. They say the reality is the tide is coming in and eventually it won’t go back out.
So the city as a whole seems to be getting prepared even if that could all turn out to be a bit futile in the long run. But what about the people responsible for these high-rise buildings covered in the report? What do they think about the findings on Earth by this new tech? I think some people um don’t believe it. Okay, can’t help can’t help it.
They think it needs to be shown on the ground that it’s also the case. I mean, it should be but this technique is around since a long time is very um very very reliable. So, they better believe it. if they don’t believe it, okay, I can’t I can’t help. But Amalyn’s work hasn’t entirely fallen on deaf ears within Miami.
There has been at least one case of his research potentially influencing key decision makers in the city. We got some response from the town of Surfside where the condo collapse happened and um they want to do some more regulations. Who knows whether it’s going to happen to um restrict vibrations. If the hypothesis do turn out to be true and construction activity is causing these buildings to sink, the city’s authorities as well as developers are surely going to need to take notice.
Especially when you look at what’s to come. There are now more than a dozen skyscrapers under construction in Miami, including the city’s first ever super tall. Although they’re all being built outside of the problem areas identified in the study, others like the Bentley residences are being built firmly within them.
With building work clearly going to continue here for the foreseeable future, Amlan is keen to keep monitoring the state of these buildings, but only if he gets the opportunity. If we get some funding, then we will do more. If you don’t get, then it goes very slow. But it’s certainly possible in yeah 5 years we’re going to publish another study and then we say oh it was already 20 cm and then people maybe will pay more attention than if it is only um 8 cm it is as it is now.
Miami isn’t the first city to experience a flurry of new skyscrapers in a short space of time and it won’t be the last. But what we’re seeing here is perhaps a sign that not everywhere is an ideal place for high-rise construction on this scale. even if the demand is there. While there’s no major cause for alarm just yet, and it could end up being nothing serious, we’ll keep our eye on this and see how things go down with these buildings over the next few years.
Remember guys, if you’re managing your own project and struggling to keep your head above the water, click that link to see what Ethos Systems has to offer. We’d really appreciate it. And as always guys, if you enjoyed this video and you want to get more from the definitive video channel for construction, make sure you subscribe to the B1M
