Parts of Champlain Towers South are brought to Surfside to honor 98 who perished
Nearly five years after Champlain Towers South collapsed, pieces of “the concrete, the steel that once held our loved ones’ homes together” were returned to Surfside, Martin Langesfeld said Wednesday.
“These pieces are not just objects,” he said during a gathering at Veterans Park. Martin Langesfeld’s sister, Nicole Langesfeld, was one of the 98 people who died when the beachfront condo building collapsed.
Surfside held a “Moment of Reflection” at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday to honor the lives lost on June 24, 2021, and unveil remnants that are from the Champlain Towers South site and will be incorporated into a memorial.
The return of the debris to Surfside was a very significant event, Surfside Commissioner Gerardo Vildostegui said during the gathering.
The memorial will remind “everybody that something tragic and something very wrong happened here,” Vildostegui said. Its design will serve the purposes of getting people to remember, honoring the dead and also asking “difficult questions about what happened and why.”
“I think we need to do that both for the sake of those we lost and all that we lost, but also to make sure nothing like this ever happens again in Surfside, in Dade County, in Florida or anywhere.” he said.
However, developers started building on the land where Champlain Towers South once stood without final determinations of why the condos collapsed or if the land is safe, Langesfeld said during the gathering.
While family members viewed the ruins stored at Veterans Park, construction crews were working on the site directly across the street.
READ MORE: Keep searching rubble for human remains, some Surfside families urge
Acting Town Manager Mario Diaz told the Miami Herald the materials selected were chosen because they fit the memorial design plan. The construction of the memorial is expected to start before April.
Raquel Oliveira, who lost her husband, Alfredo Leone, and 5-year-old son, Lorenzo, attended the gathering and said seeing the debris brought on strong feelings. Even though it has been more than four years, she still had “the same feeling as the day of the collapse,” Oliveira said.
“I remember the first time that I got here on the day of the collapse, and my first thought was to [give thanks] that I was alive even though I’d lost my son and my husband,” she said.
While she’s glad to be alive, a part of her and everyone who lost someone is dead, Oliveira said, adding she was happy to see the memorial for them was coming closer to completion.
“We want the world to know what happened here and to have a little hint of how it feels to lose everything,” Oliveira said.
This story was originally published February 4, 2026 at 9:48 PM.
