Holmes Beach Vacation Rental Deemed Unsafe, Evacuated: Report

HOLMES BEACH, FL — Vacationers voluntarily evacuated from a Holmes Beach vacation rental building Friday because of structural concerns.

Several guests were placed in other rental properties after cracks were noted in the building’s balconies, the Sarasota-Herald Tribune reported.

“One of the tenants called code enforcement and told them he was concerned about the safety of the building,” Mayor Judy Tittsworth told the Herald-Tribune. “It did appear to be unsafe. Cracks were showing up on the balconies. We notified the management companies, so they voluntarily relocated everybody to other properties.”

Holmes Beach building official Neal Schwartz told WFLA that a maintenance worker noticed the damage and alerted the property manager, who contacted the city’s code enforcement officers. Since the matter was reported, they’ve toured the buildings and homed in on the balconies as the primary issue.

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“Right now, the problem is with the balconies,” Schwartz told WFLA. “Now, we also did a walk-through of the two exterior stairs and the catwalk, which is also wood. We saw some aging, we saw some blocking where they removed some of the wood, or some of the wood was – I’m not going to use the word rotting – but soft, so they blocked under it just to make it look or feel better. Technically, you would still need to get a permit for that, but it was very minor.”

He also said that an edge of one supporting beam was cracked, leading to the deck leaning.

Schwartz said the problems at the four-unit building at 3400 Sixth Ave. could have led to a collapse and the building was vacated so a structural engineer could inspect the property, according to the Anna Maria Island Sun.

All balconies at the building, which is part of a two-property complex known as the Fountain Head, were affected by the structural issues, he said. He added that the sister building at 3402 Sixth Ave. hasn’t experienced similar problems with the balconies.

The evacuation of the building comes weeks after the collapse of Champlain Towers South, a 12-story condo building in Surfside, June 24 killed nearly 100 people.