SURFSIDE, FLA. (WSVN) - A family member of the victims in the Champlain Towers South collapse is speaking out on the approved memorial set to be built.
Martin Langesfeld, whose sister died in the tower collapse, said the design approved by the town commission is much different from what a family-led memorial committee originally proposed.
“It’s insulting, and it’s completely disrespectful. We fought for over five years to have a design that brought together all of these emotions, working with families and getting the community’s input and all the residents to make sure we don’t forget what occurred that night,” said Langesfeld.
Back in February, families and friends of victims, along with Surfside and county officials, gathered for a moment of reflection and to see what a future memorial could look like.
“I think the design that we’ve settled on is going to be something that serves that very important purpose, of getting people not only to remember and to honor, but to ask difficult questions about what happened and why,” said Town of Surfside Commissioner Gerardo Vildostegui.
The memorial committee proposed using rubble from the collapse in the design.
“We cannot forget this. We won’t, but we want the world to know what happened here,” said Raquel Oliveira Leone during the February event.
“It’s traumatic. Ninety-eight people were crushed to death in their own homes. The point of the memorial is to remind people what happened here. Number one because it was preventable and number two because it was the right thing to do,” said Langesfeld.
But according to Surfside officials, a month later, the project was scaled back due to the price tag, along with other reasons.
In July, Surfside commissioners moved forward with the newly designed memorial in a split vote, despite some residents’ pushback.
“Please, before we approve this, a design professional should look at it. The [Planning and Zoning] board should look at it, and I think the memorial committee should look at it,” said a resident.
Langesfeld told 7News the issue with money is nonexistent because of community support.
“We have funding from other avenues. We have Miami-Dade County, we have the state of Florida, and we have private funders that would contribute to making sure this memorial is as it was promised,” he said.
Earlier in August, the commission adopted several final design changes.
These changes include an image of hands surrounded by the 98 names etched in stone, instead of using rubble, concrete slabs and rebar from the collapse.
But for Langesfeld and others, the new design is not what they had envisioned.
“We won’t stop fighting. We will speak up,” said Langesfeld.
“What the commission ended up voting for in July was something that sugarcoats the Champlain collapse and really creates a kind of developer-friendly memorial instead of the more searching, and difficult memorial that the family members felt appropriate,” said Surfside Commissioner Gerardo Vildostegui, who voted no on the final renderings.
The memorial’s construction timeline remains unclear as of late Thursday.
In a statement to 7News, Surfside Mayor Shlomo Danzinger said:
“The Commission’s decision reflects what this community asked for. The image of hands, representing love, family, and continuity, was the symbolic design originally approved by the Memorial Committee back in 2022, and we felt strongly that it should be restored as the guiding image of the memorial. We also voted to remove the concrete slabs and rebar laid out through the street-end park. Beyond the public safety concerns they posed, the feedback we heard was clear: these elements caused unnecessary pain to families, survivors, and residents who pass by the site every day. This memorial is meant to honor those we lost with dignity, not to reopen wounds each time someone walks by.”
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