Construction Resumes at Griffin's Citadel HQ After Rig Collapse

Construction has resumed at Ken Griffin’s Citadel headquarters site in Brickell, more than three weeks after a drilling rig collapse shut the project down. Miami-Dade County’s Department of Regulatory and Economic Resources approved a revised safety plan from site contractor Keller North America on October 7, and work restarted the week of October 12, the Miami Herald and The Real Deal reported.

Why it matters

The restart lifts the stop-work order that froze Citadel’s site on Brickell Bay Drive after the September 14 collapse, but it does not close the file. Sergio Ascunce, the county building official who signed off on the earlier investigation, also approved Keller’s new safety report, which means the same county office that shut the site down is the one vouching for the fix. OSHA’s separate federal investigation stays open, and a Miami-Dade building official’s approval of Keller’s paperwork is not the same thing as OSHA clearing the contractor. Any other general contractor running rigs on soft Brickell waterfront lots, a stretch of South Florida with more vertical office and resi work underway than at any point in a decade, now has a real document to measure its own site plans against.

The numbers

Keller’s revised plan adds spotters to watch the ground when a rig moves, crane mats to spread out equipment weight, flaggers near streets and sidewalks, and advance notice to nearby residents before heavy work starts close to their buildings. Officials believe the original rig tipped after it hit a soft patch of ground, softened by recent rain, while being repositioned. Four people were hospitalized in the September 14 collapse and all survived. OSHA has since returned the damaged rig to Keller but has not closed its probe, and an agency spokesperson declined to discuss specifics while the investigation continues. The project, budgeted at $2.5 billion, has not yet reached vertical construction.

What’s next

OSHA’s findings are still the marker that matters most here, not a county sign-off. Separately, the City of Miami cited the site on October 14 for dust drifting beyond the property line. Keller began addressing it October 15, and Ascunce told the Miami Herald the city’s notice “will not halt ongoing work” since only county building officials, not the city, hold authority over the stop-work status. That leaves two open threads: whether OSHA finds fault with the rig operation itself, and how fast Keller can get back to the piling work that triggered the collapse in the first place.