Episode 9: ‘Uniquely dysfunctional’: How a group of Canadian developers built Champlain South
Episode 9: Doomed from the Start? Developers, Designers and Players
In the late 1970s, a group of Canadian developers came to the sleepy seaside town of Surfside with a vision: They planned to transform the town’s string of low-rise, low-brow motels — filled with middle-class French-Canadian tourists — into a gleaming row of soaring condo towers.
Their first project, Champlain Towers South, was built against the backdrop of corruption, sewage problems and local officials throwing glasses of water at each other during town meetings. Forty years later, their dream suddenly collapsed in the middle of the night — leaving 98 people dead.
Episode 9: Doomed from the Start? Developers, Designers and Players of Collapse: Disaster in Surfside, a new podcast from Miami Herald/Treefort Media, takes listeners inside the story of the men who built Champlain South — and how their decisions may have had catastrophic consequences four decades on.
BEHIND THE STORY
MOREA note about the project
“Collapse: Disaster in Surfside” is a 12-part investigative and narrative reporting project; a co-production of the Miami Herald and Treefort Media. We spoke with survivors, witnesses, experts, first responders, and journalists, to get the whole story of Champlain Towers South. Please consider supporting local journalism by purchasing a digital subscription at MiamiHerald.com/subscribe.