Sales Video For Champlain Towers Pre-Collapse

The interior shots are probably real, they had condos at a number of price points, including a penthouse/penthouses that probably went for over a mil and likely looked nice enough inside.

But yeah the exterior shots are all cherry-picked and have their saturation and color balance doctored, and blemishes edited out like a

The exterior shot at 1:28 in particular is a joke, it look like a CGI rendering.

I have a feeling that the basement support columns are undersized. For other towers, perhaps they should remove a few top floors, including the penhouse, and adding more support bracing in the garage. It will not be cheap, but probably saving some units.

God knows what the amortization time on repairs like that are, it (thankfully) didn't seem like this particular condo complex was running even much more than 50% capacity, it had about 140 units in the south tower and looks like the death toll will be about 160, and most units were probably at least double-occupancy.

Selling off the land for new construction I think starts to look like an appealing option when the property management get confronted with the bill for major modifications like that, especially if they're the original lienholderes and the lease is paid off which after 40 years it probably is.

Talking about other similar properties of the same age, to be clear

Not worth it. There's not much left anyway. Demolish the heap of crap and leave the lot vacant. The geotechnical people are saying it's located atop a bedrock breach anyway, as indicated by the subsidence study.

Oh yeah definitely, and I like the fake people they put around the pool on some of those aerial views. The whole idea of a pool seems dumb for a place that's just a few steps away from a beach.

They'd have some real-estate finance firm declare the structure to have "no financial value" and write that s*it right off before plunging good money into buildings with confirmed design flaws. Not great for sales...

Not for the collapsed tower, but for the other one (and more similar buildings, by the same developer). I believe they are starting to vacate the other tower and similar buildings, and wondering what to do with them.

The pool is for hanging out at and being seen at and send pics to the people back in Paraguay with your South Beach-balla style; it's not really for serious workouts or regular recreational swimming and probably not used much in practice.

There's a new ~25 story condo complex in Boston that has a sign on the roof that says "LOOK! We have a POOL..." this rooftop pool is about 10 feet long and 4 feet wide and it's an outdoor pool. in BOSTON

They've been keeping Tower North in excellent condition, staying on top of the maintenance and fixing water issues as they appear. That place looks clean as a whistle, even the garage. And the subsidence issue was measured at just that one spot with the collapsed building, all the other lots had zero sink rate. The so-called Tower East, the one closest up the street, doesn't look so good. It has the same issues with water damage and cracked columns all over the place. Goes to show longevity is all in the management of the place, they have to make it happen, it won't just come spontaneously.

"Only entropy comes easy" - Anton Chekhov

and legal fees.

So, they are suing the HOA for five millions, which would be paid for by additional assessments, and pay to owners after legal fees. What do the owners gain?

First crack at the insurance money.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

The interior shots are manipulated. I see this a lot in real estate stills. They exaggerate the Z dimension to make rooms look bigger. When they show the same room from two angles you can tell easily. In one shot window or furniture looks large and in the other shot the same things look very small. For me it makes it hard to tell how large a room is and I tend to walk away.

One of the shots in the video shows an over head decoration at the bar or kitchen island that should be rectangular, but the near corner seems to be bent upward.

They do something similar in car photos which makes the near part of the car look huge. I don't get what that is about. If I'm looking for a small car I don't want to have a monster fender on one corner.

People have been shooting interiors with ultra-wide angle lenses for many decades. The perspective is on account of the camera position.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs