Ultra-luxurious 640ft beachside skyscraper where Lionel Messi owns £8million apartment with car elevator is SINKING
AN ULTRA-luxurious 640ft beachside skyscraper where Lionel Messi owns an £8m apartment is reportedly sinking.
The Porsche Design Tower, only 10 years old, is drooping at an “unexpected rate”, a new University of Miami study has found.
The 60-floor building was the first residence branded by the famed automaker and even includes high-tech car lifts.
Star footballer Lionel Messi, who plays for Inter Miami, owns an apartment and is able to enter and exit the building through one sneaky method.
The building includes three car lifts that move a motor from underneath to garages next to lounges on each floor.
Messi’s condo measures 3,555 square feet and is comprised of three bedrooms and four and a half bathrooms.
The study has found that 35 buildings have sunk up to three inches between 2016 and 2023.
Most of those affected are along Sunny Isles Beach – and it also includes the Ritz-Carlton Residences and two Trump Towers.
The sinking comes after the Champlain Towers South building collapsed in Miami in 2021.
The tragedy killed 98 people despite workers finding the building had deteriorated in the years building up to its fall.
Researchers were able to figure out the buildings were sinking by looking at satellite images taken 700km away.
They used fixed elements like balconies and rooftops as reference points to measure the movement of the buildings.
European Sentinel-1 satellites are able to detect displacements as small as one millimetre.
Falk Amelung, a geophysics professor at the Rosenstiel School, noted, “We found that subsidence in most high-rises slows down over time, but in some, it continues at a steady rate.
“This suggests that subsidence could last for an extended period.”
Researchers pinned the sinking on the sand in the ground the building is built on top of.
They said the weight of the buildings and vibrations in the construction can cause the sand it is built on to shift.
While daily tidal movements and cracking limestone deeper in the ground can contribute to a more gradual sinking over time.
The lifts have been named “Dezervators” after property developer Gil Dezer who developed the project at the request of Porsche.
The 42-year-old developer owns 29 cars himself and he plans to admire at least one of them from his sofa in the swish high-rise overlooking Miami.
He said: “If you love your car and you see it as a piece of art … this is the kind of place you’re going to want.
“Instead of hanging your art on the wall, you have your art right behind your glass divider in your living room.”