FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Last week, a crack was discovered at the new $100 million Fort Lauderdale police headquarters. Now, the plan to fix it is in jeopardy.
The project has garnered significant attention, but its future is still uncertain.
An outside engineer’s review of the growing concrete crack and bending roof deck on the northwest corner of Fort Lauderdale’s new half-built police headquarters revealed troubling findings: “It doesn’t meet design” and “it’s losing strength.”
“There was absolutely no word coming to us that there was anything wrong with this building and anything we should be concerned about,” said Fort Lauderdale Commissioner John Herbst.
Herbst, the city commission’s harshest critic, discussed the review Sunday on This Week in South Florida.
The report, which was conducted by an independent engineer, stated, “Our site findings show that the construction of the beam cantilever rebar reinforcement placement did not meet the original design intent.”
The report also noted, “This office does not agree with the foundation design concept or the corrective work that the city has been taking since the discovery in March.”
“It wasn’t something that would cause a catastrophic failure structurally,” said Assistant City Manager of Fort Lauderdale Anthony Fajardo.
Despite involving big veteran companies with extensive experience in South Florida projects, the mistakes were missed from the beginning. AECOM, a multinational billion-dollar company, has not returned calls.
Engineers at Thornton Tomasetti, who botched the calculations, are also involved in reviewing the collapse of Surfside’s Champlain Towers South, which involved cracking concrete.
Additionally, KEITH, the civil engineers hired by the city, saw their vice president Greg Chavarria, the former Fort Lauderdale city manager, resign just last month.
As the police headquarters project remains under intense examination, a bigger question emerges: How did these major companies, responsible for numerous government buildings in South Florida, repeatedly overlook significant errors from the beginning?
The future of the $100 million police headquarters is uncertain. The city is commissioning more studies and consulting additional experts. In the coming weeks or months, officials will decide whether the project can proceed.