After accident, Citadel construction resumes — with new safety measures

Hedge fund giant Citadel has resumed building its new global headquarters in Brickell after a construction accident sent four people to the hospital in September.

Read more After accident, Citadel construction resumes — with new safety measures

Miami-Dade gave Ken Griffin’s investment firm the green light to get back to putting up a 52-story office tower. That came after the county reviewed a safety plan with changes submitted by Citadel’s contractor, Keller North America, to the current soil improvement phase of the project.

The contractor was conducting pre-construction soil preparation when a drill rig, a piece of machinery used for boring holes in the ground, fell onto Brickell Bay Drive on Sept. 14. The rig crushed several vehicles, including a car with a woman inside driving past the site. She narrowly escaped the car before it burst into flames.

The other three who were injured were construction workers on the site. All four were taken to the hospital and survived.

Miami-Dade issued a stop-work order right after the accident, which could only be lifted following approval of the safety plan. Work on the site of the future Citadel headquarters started in March, but vertical construction has not yet begun.

Keller’s safety plan, a copy obtained by the Miami Herald, lays out modified safety protocols for the site.

They include use of spotters, trained workers who can assist rig operators by monitoring the area to where a rig is being repositioned and look out for equipment, perilous ground conditions or other dangers. Crane mats, which help distribute weight of machines, will also be deployed.

These tools are important because the rig fell when it was being repositioned in wet weather, Sergio Ascunce, assistant director/building official with Miami-Dade County’s Department of Regulatory and Economic Resources, told the Miami Herald in an interview on Wednesday.

He said current theory holds that during movement, the rig hit a soft spot on the ground that gave it a lift. So, it tilted over and fell. The soft spot was due to recent rain, and the contractor didn’t properly gauge the depth of the puddles. .

The safety report, approved by Ascunce, emphasized the importance of crane mats. They reduce “the potential for localized ground failure, excessive rutting, differential settlement, or loss of level beneath the rig,” the report said. “The mats also provide a more consistent operating surface and allow the condition of the supporting ground to be monitored as the rig advances through the work area.”

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Crane mats, which are typically made of thick planks of wood, help distribute weight of machines to reduce the risk of the soil below sinking unevenly.

The safety plan was approved on Oct. 7 by the Miami-Dade County Department of Regulatory and Economic Resources. Construction restarted the week of Oct. 12.

Other safety measures listed in the report include flaggers for when equipment is being moved and there is a risk it could fall onto a nearby street or sidewalk. The flaggers would indicate to people in the area that the equipment is being moved. Residents of nearby buildings will also be informed when work on the site is happening near them.

It’s unclear whether any of these protocols were in place before the accident. A spokesperson for Keller didn’t respond to an email or voicemail from the Herald.

The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which examines equipment and worker safety, still has an open investigation. Ascune said OSHA has returned the damaged equipment to the contractor.

Agency spokesperson Erika Ruthman, citing an ongoing investigation, declined to discuss details.

Miami-Dade Consumer and Neighborhood Protection also opened an investigation but quickly closed it when realizing the incident didn’t involve an existing building.

The Brickell office tower is the centerpiece of Griffin’s larger plans to remake an entire city block.

The Citadel CEO, who is worth an estimated $57.3 billion, began buying up land in the area in 2022. After spending hundreds of millions of dollars acquiring several parcels, he now owns a block that stretches from Brickell Bay Drive to Brickell Avenue. He has announced plans to build a residential building in addition to the planned office tower.

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Griffin moved Citadel’s global headquarters from Chicago to Miami in 2022.

This story was originally published October 14, 2026 at 7:22 PM.