Four people were hospitalized in stable condition after the rig came down Monday morning at Brickell Bay Drive and Southeast 12th Street. OSHA is investigating.
A drilling rig collapsed onto Brickell Bay Drive on Monday, September 14, just after 8 a.m., at the intersection of Brickell Bay Drive and Southeast 12th Street. CBS News Miami reported the 85-foot rig crushed three vehicles, one of which caught fire, along with a construction container, trapping workers inside. Four people were taken to local hospitals, all in stable condition. WSVN reported the four as three construction workers and a driver.
Roughly 50 firefighters responded and the Miami Technical Rescue Team conducted complex rescue operations using hydraulic cutting tools, per CBS News Miami. OSHA and Miami-Dade County Unsafe Structures personnel also responded to investigate. NBC News and Insurance Journal carried the incident as well.
“Our number one priority is the health and safety of our workers and the community. We are working in full cooperation with City and County building departments to secure the site and conduct a full investigation.”— Related Companies, statement to CBS News Miami
The collapse happened at the Brickell Bay Drive site tied to Ken Griffin's Citadel headquarters project. The Real Deal reported the planned building at 1201 Brickell Bay Drive as a 54-story, 1.7 million-square-foot office tower that would serve as headquarters for Citadel and Citadel Securities. I could not confirm those specifications outside The Real Deal, so treat them as reported rather than settled. The connection between the accident site and the Citadel project was carried broadly, including by NBC News.
Four people are in the hospital, so that is where this starts. It is a workplace accident with an open OSHA investigation, and nobody outside that investigation knows the cause yet. I am not going to speculate on it, and I would be careful with anyone who does in the next few days. On the real estate question clients keep asking me: yes, this is the building most often pointed to when people explain why Brickell office rents went where they went, and yes, an investigation is a schedule variable. But a schedule variable is not a delay until someone announces one, and no one has. What is real and immediate is the disruption on Brickell Bay Drive itself. If you own or rent along that stretch, expect closures and construction activity to be part of your daily life for a while, and factor that into showings if you are selling in one of the towers facing the site.
I track what is under construction on every block between the river and Southeast 15th Road and what it does to your building.
See Brickell →Cover photography: Creative Commons / public domain — photo credits.
Keep reading
Prosper Group and Versluys Group unveiled Bugatti Residences Miami on September 15, the marque's first U.S. branded residence, on the $50 million Brickell acre they closed in August. No pricing yet. Sales open in the first half of 2027.
More than 2,000 rentals are now funded on 4.7 acres between MiamiCentral and Miami Worldcenter. That pipeline will set Downtown and Edgewater rents for years.
The Triangle is one of the few Live Local Act projects in Miami actually pouring concrete. Every unit is income restricted to households earning up to 120 percent of Area Median Income.