DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – An unfinished condominium tower foundation near Oakridge Boulevard is decaying, and neighbors are calling it a major eyesore. Daytona Beach city leaders also called it dangerous.
The city condemned it last week, but now, Daytona Beach officials are working with the owners on a plan to get construction back up and running.
City leaders said the Protogroup condominium site has been sitting basically untouched in its current state for the last three years.
[TRENDING: Tail-gator? Reptile seen tied to vehicle on I-95 in Brevard County | Here are the airlines with the most delays | Become a News 6 Insider (it’s free!)]
“The big concern for me is the corrosiveness of the exposed rebar, and that’s on all the columns. Everyone sees it as they go by there,” Glen Urquahrt, the city’s chief building official, said.
Urquhart handed the property owner a condemnation order last week. He said that in the building’s current rusty state, it’s dangerous and would have been even more dangerous if the owners tried to build on top of it in this condition.
“It’s a sound foundation. It’s just a matter of what it’s going to be tying into, and you’re going to be tying into the columns, so that’s where we came in on this as far as condemning it,” he said.
PDA Trading Inc., which the Protogroup is operating under, once promised a 31-story tower that would have made it the tallest tower in Daytona Beach.
Urquhart said the owners wanted to move forward with development, so the city told them clean it up by Friday and hire an engineer to create a plan for making the concrete columns strong enough to hold the tower.
“They also need to start construction again on the columns. We will consider it construction if they start to take away the corrosiveness or start cutting away the rebar,” Urquhart said.
If the owners don’t do this, the city will put the “condemned” notices back up. The owners can appeal that, but if the city wins that process, then the city can demolish all of it.
Urquhart said the city had to act early, especially so during a time when Floridians are on high alert after the Surfside condo collapse in Miami last year, and the legislation for inspections that followed it.
“Everybody sees it. Everybody pays attention to it, so you have to do something about it. You can’t just say everything is cool over there, just go ahead and build on it,” Urquhart said.
The owners of the project told News 6 they have no comment at this time.
Get today’s headlines in minutes with Your Florida Daily: