Topping-out ceremony held at By the Sea Condominiums
By MEGHAN BRADBURY
mbradbury@breezenewspapers.com
A major construction milestone was marked at By the Sea Condominiums last week with a topping-out ceremony.
“A couple of weeks ago, we quietly noted the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Ian,” Sanibel Mayor Mike Miller said. “On Sanibel, about 45% of our 4,900 structures received major damage, and almost every building had some damage. We’ve made great progress since then. We estimate about 75% of our accommodations available for short-term occupancy are back online, and we’re making progress every day. I want to thank Benchmark for everything they’ve done to help restore our island since the storm.”
The placement of the final structure element for By the Sea Condominiums was set Wednesday, Oct. 21, for the $22 million, 18-unit coastal-resilient redevelopment at 2611 W. Gulf Drive.
City officials, business leaders and members of the By the Sea Condominium Association attended the topping-out ceremony.
The project is currently tracking approximately four months ahead of schedule.
“We are celebrating the topping out of three new condo buildings on Sanibel that are all beachfront that was built from the ground up,” Benchmark General Contractors President Brad Nickel said.
By the Sea is comprised of three identical buildings with 19,477 square feet each, with each rising 45 feet with six residents per building. The living space is elevated approximately 14 feet above grade over a ground-level parking and storage area, which is to meet the current coastal building standards while reducing exposure to future storm surge. The amenities for the property include covered resident parking, exterior visitor parking, a centrally located pool and a walkover, which provides direct pool-to-beach access.
When Hurricane Ian made landfall in September 2022, hurricane-force winds battered the site for roughly eight hours, and tore the roofs from two of the three original structures that stood on the property since 1983.
“There was a previous contractor before that came in and did all the cleanup, demolition of the interior spaces — took the roof off, the windows out — and ultimately when they did that they took the building to no return,” he said.
The buildings were originally below floodplain, meaning they fell under FEMA’s 50% rule, which requires non-compliant structures to be brought up to the current floodplain standards once the repair costs exceed half of the building’s value.
“When they did all of that demolition, it didn’t allow enough money to be able to go back to rebuild these buildings, or renovate these buildings,” he said. “We had to work with the clients and kind of explain to them the predicament that they were in and the ultimate choice — they had to come down and be rebuilt.”
Jim Briggs, By the Sea board member and resident, said the contractor they had initially, who worked with them on a previous renovation about five or six years ago, had done a good job for cosmetic renovation.
He said they knew they needed someone with the capabilities, which is when Benchmark got involved.
“It has just been an amazing relationship,” Briggs said. “To see what has happened since April to today it is just amazing. It is phenomenal the speed things have gone, the decisions that were made — how to stage the site, to have it organized, to have it efficient, to have it clean, to have it safe — it has just been rewarding to see. We can’t be more excited to get into our units.”
The three buildings had to come down and be rebuilt from the ground up.
“What’s really special about this project is the amount of self-perform work Benchmark took on,” Nickel said. “When you’re a self-performing general contractor, it allows you to control a lot more. We control the critical path of the structure. We control the quality of everything that’s being put in place. And when you control all that, the outcome is being three to four months ahead of schedule and under budget.”
Construction is expected to be completed by March 2027.