The condominium association for one of the two Ritz-Carlton towers in Coconut Grove is suing the current and former owners of the 21-story building, saying the two companies have failed to address critical repair and maintenance problems.
The condominium association at the Ritz-Carlton Tower Residences in Coconut Grove is suing the current and former owners of the 21-story tower, saying the two companies allowed the building to deteriorate to such a point that chunks of concrete are falling off the building’s balconies onto a pool deck and pedestrian walkway below.
“Notwithstanding repeated notices from the City of Miami and the plaintiff’s ongoing demands, defendants have failed to perform critically required repair and maintenance as they are legally obligated to do,” the lawsuit states.
“Instead, defendants have allowed issues to fester and worsen, to the point where what was once an ‘iconic’ property now has concrete chunks falling from exterior balconies with protruding post-tension cables.”
The Tower Residences – one of two Ritz-Carlton towers on SW 27th Avenue between Tigertail Avenue and South Bayshore Drive – overlooks Biscayne Bay with 129 luxury condominiums that typically sell for $1 million or more.
The second tower, which includes a hotel, has its own condominium association and is not a party to the litigation. The lawsuit was filed Friday in Miami-Dade Circuit Court.
The Tower Residences was built in 2001 but is already experiencing serious structural issues, according to the lawsuit – problems that were recently documented in an assessment report tied to the building’s 25th anniversary.
“Our 25-year recertification report memorializes many of the damages caused by maintenance failures,” the building’s director of residences said Friday in an email sent to the building’s condominium owners. According to the email, those problems include:
“Water intrusion into balcony slabs, concrete falling off balcony slabs onto the street below, broken post-tension cables required to hold up our balconies, water intrusion through cracks in the building stucco, leaking generator oil causing garage roofing damage, and more.”
Those problems prompted the City of Miami to issue a notice of violation in February 2025, the lawsuit states, but conditions have only worsened since then.
“We have concrete falling onto the sidewalks below our building,” Martin Mann, the association’s president, told the Spotlight.
Building managers have closed a portion of the pool deck and a set of stairs below the building to protect residents and visitors, he said.
The association went to court Friday to force Gencom Group LLC, the building’s current owner, to repair the balconies and fix the other problems.
The association is also suing the building’s former owner – Hersha Hospitality Trust – saying both companies allowed the repair issues to worsen over time, driving up the cost of the repairs and driving down the value of the tower’s condo units.
“For the past eight plus years our building owner has failed to do required maintenance work on our building, despite repeated demands,” Murat Kiral, the building’s director of residences, said in his email to the building’s condo owners.
“The needed repairs are all fixable – but we need a practical plan and execution as well as a resolution of outstanding cost issues so that the property can be properly repaired and upgraded,” Kiral added. “This is the goal of the litigation.”
Neither company responded to a request for comment Monday from the Spotlight.
Mann estimates the needed repairs will cost at least $30 to $40 million. Unit owners would typically be required to pay 70% of those costs, he said, but the lawsuit says the defendants should be responsible for the increased cost and scope of repairs.
Hersha, the former owner, completed repairs on two “test” balconies, Mann said, but the work slowed when additional work revealed more severe problems. “We have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars and virtually nothing has been done,” he said.
The condominium association is asking a judge to force Gencom to complete the repairs, and for Gencom and Hersha to reimburse condominium owners for the increased cost and scope of repairs, and any loss in property values.
The association is also seeking to block Gencom from building a third tower on the property above the existing hotel ballroom.
“Unwilling to maintain what it is already obligated to maintain (the owner) instead wants to devote resources to developing and building a new project,” the lawsuit states.
The owner doesn’t have the right to build that project under the property’s “master declaration,” the lawsuit asserts.
The lawsuit also questions whether the proposed eight-story tower violates the city’s zoning code. Gencom is relying a City of Miami zoning ordinance – since revoked – that briefly allowed developers to build three stories of “bonus” height on Grove properties within transit-oriented areas.
The WELL Coconut Grove is taking advantage of that ordinance to build an eight-story building on a Tigertail Avenue property with a height limit of five stories.
A group of local residents has challenged the WELL’s bonus height, arguing that the now-repealed ordinance was unlawfully adopted and that The WELL and other projects should never have been granted vested rights to build above base-level height limits.
