Drive South Ocean Drive from the Fort Pierce Inlet down through Jensen Beach to the Martin County line and you are looking at the most weather-punished painted concrete on the Treasure Coast. Those buildings sit on a barrier island with the Atlantic on one side and the Indian River Lagoon on the other: salt aerosol, UV, and wind-driven rain from the east, constant humidity and mildew pressure from the west. Every one of them has a coating system with a finite service life, and since 2022 Florida law has had opinions about how that gets funded.
This post covers the reserve and statutory side of condominium exterior painting — what Fla. Stat. 718.112(2)(g) says, which buildings it reaches, and what a board should require in a proposal so the number reconciles with the study. If you are a homeowner trying to get a color approved, that is a different problem and we covered it in our HOA paint color approval guide.
What the statute actually says
Fla. Stat. 718.112(2)(g) requires a residential condominium association to have a structural integrity reserve study completed at least every 10 years after the condominium’s creation, for each building on the condominium property that is three habitable stories or higher in height. The study is based on a visual inspection of the property, performed by a licensed engineer or architect or a credentialed reserve specialist.
The statute then lists the items the study must identify at a minimum. Verbatim, in order: roof; structure, including load-bearing walls and other primary structural members; fireproofing and fire protection systems; plumbing; electrical systems; waterproofing and exterior painting; windows and exterior doors; and any other item with a deferred maintenance expense or replacement cost exceeding $25,000 (inflation-adjusted) whose failure would negatively affect the items above.
That is the whole point of this article. Exterior painting is not a discretionary line in a Florida condominium budget. It is named in the same breath as the roof and the load-bearing structure, because on a coastal concrete building the coating and sealant system is what keeps chlorides and water out of the slab edges and the rebar.
Two more provisions matter to boards:
- Building painting is a named reserve item for condominiums generally. Under paragraph (2)(f), reserve accounts must include, but are not limited to, roof replacement, building painting, and pavement resurfacing, regardless of the amount of deferred maintenance expense or replacement cost. The $25,000 trigger does not apply to painting.
- SIRS items are no longer waivable. For a budget adopted on or after December 31, 2024, the members of a unit-owner-controlled association that must obtain a SIRS may not determine to provide no reserves or less reserves than required for the items listed in paragraph (g).
Two scope limits deserve to be said plainly, because we hear both misstated at annual meetings. First, the SIRS requirement runs to condominium (and cooperative) buildings of three or more habitable stories — a two-story villa building is outside it, and “habitable” excludes spaces like parking, storage, and mechanical areas. Second, Chapter 720 homeowners associations are not covered by the SIRS statute at all. We are painters, not attorneys or engineers. Nothing here is legal advice; confirm your association’s obligations with your own counsel and your reserve professional.
What HB 913 changed in 2025
House Bill 913 took effect July 1, 2025. For painting purposes, three changes matter. It clarified the threshold as three habitable stories. It raised the catch-all deferred-maintenance threshold to $25,000 with inflation adjustment. And it added funding flexibility: an association that must have a SIRS may secure a line of credit or a loan to fund capital expenses required by a milestone inspection under s. 553.899 or by the structural integrity reserve study itself, and — for a budget adopted on or before December 31, 2028, where the association completed a milestone inspection under s. 553.899 within the previous two calendar years — the board, upon approval of a majority of the total voting interests, may temporarily pause or reduce reserve contributions for no more than two consecutive annual budgets to fund repairs the milestone inspection recommended.
That milestone connection is not academic here. Section 553.899 reaches buildings three habitable stories or more, generally by December 31 of the year the building turns 30 — but it also lets the local enforcement agency require the inspection at 25 years where local circumstances, expressly including proximity to salt water, warrant it. Barrier-island buildings are exactly the population that provision was written about, and a milestone inspection that finds deterioration is often what turns “we’ll repaint next year” into a spall-repair-and-recoat project.
The local building stock, and what it means for the coating
Ocean Village, Fort Pierce (34949). This gated oceanfront community off 2400 South Ocean Drive is not one association — it is a cluster of separate ones (Beachtree, Catamaran, Seascape, Ocean Villas, the Golf Lodges, Coral Cluster and more), and the building types range from garden villas and town homes to high-rise towers. That mix is the practical lesson: SIRS applicability is determined per building, so one community’s footprint can contain buildings on both sides of the three-habitable-stories line — and where a cluster is organized as a Chapter 720 homeowners association rather than as a condominium, the SIRS statute does not reach it at all. Much of it dates to the mid-1970s, which brings two coating consequences. Coatings of that vintage are often chalked and oxidized past the point where a topcoat will bond — those substrates need a masonry conditioner or bonding primer, not a second color coat. And any building that went up before 1978 raises the lead-bearing-coating question, which puts paid surface-disturbing work under the EPA’s Renovation, Repair and Painting program. Ask any bidder whether they are an EPA Lead-Safe certified firm.
The Empress, Jensen Beach (34957). A 15-story high-rise on South Ocean Drive completed in 1988. High-rise oceanfront work is a different trade from house painting: access is staged from swing stage or rope access rather than ladders, and the failure points are the horizontal and near-horizontal surfaces — balcony decks, slab edges, and soffits — where chloride-driven rebar corrosion produces spalling. Coating a spalled slab edge is money set on fire. The concrete gets chipped back to sound material, the steel gets treated, the patch gets placed and cured, and only then does the waterproofing and finish system go on.
Everything in between. The run of associations along South Ocean Drive — Island Dunes, Sand Dollar Shores, Fairwinds Cove, Ocean Towers, Jensen Beach Club and their neighbors — spans roughly four decades of construction, from 1970s low-rise block and stucco to 1980s cast-in-place towers to later infill. Build era predicts substrate, and substrate predicts the system: hairline-cracked 1970s stucco is where elastomeric versus standard acrylic becomes a real engineering decision rather than a sales pitch, while tight later stucco is usually better served by a high-build acrylic that breathes.
The SIRS painting component, broken into what a bid must price
| SIRS line item | What it is on a Hutchinson Island building | Why it gets under-funded |
|---|---|---|
| Vertical wall coating | Primer plus two coats on stucco or CBS; separate spec for ocean-facing elevations | Priced as one blended interval when the east face fails years earlier |
| Concrete restoration | Chip-out, rebar treatment, patch and cure at balcony edges, soffits, slab edges | Quantity is unknown until sounding; boards budget it as zero |
| Balcony and walkway waterproofing | Horizontal traffic-bearing deck systems — a different product class from wall paint | Assumed to be included in “painting” and then value-engineered out |
| Joint sealant | Window and door perimeters, control and expansion joints, dissimilar-material transitions | Measured in linear feet nobody counted; the cheapest true source of water intrusion |
| Railings and metal | Chalked or corroding aluminum and steel needing bonding primer and DTM coating | Treated as touch-up rather than a system |
| Wash and prep | Soft washing to kill mildew and remove salt film before any coating goes on | Cut first when bids are compared on bottom line |
That last row earns its own sentence. On a barrier island the envelope carries a salt film and biological growth that will defeat adhesion no matter what is sprayed over it, and pressure alone can drive water into stucco cracks — which is why the choice between soft washing and pressure washing belongs in the coating spec.
What boards should require in the proposal
Ask for a measured takeoff rather than a lump sum, with unit pricing for spall repair and sealant so change orders are arithmetic instead of negotiation. Ask for the exact Sherwin-Williams product and sheen by name for each substrate — wall, soffit, metal, deck — because “premium paint” is not a specification. Ask for a mock-up elevation approved by the board before full production. Ask who is holding the sprayer: our crews are W-2 employees, never subcontractors, and on a project where workers are suspended over a pool deck that distinction shows up on the certificate of insurance. And get the warranty in writing — our exterior painting carries a 5-year workmanship warranty. Then pin the sequence to storm season — sealant replacement and coating cure windows are the two items you least want landing in an August squall pattern.
On cost: we will not put a number on a condominium exterior without walking it. A single-family exterior repaint with us runs $3,500–$6,500, and multi-building or multi-story condominium scopes move above that range — our exterior painting cost breakdown explains which variables move the figure. What we will do is give your board a written, line-itemed proposal that a reserve specialist can actually reconcile against the study.
KB Painting & Refinishing is family-owned by Braiden and Kaylee Smith and was founded in 2019, with 25+ years of combined crew experience behind the equipment. We are insured, rated 4.9 stars across 350+ Google reviews, and Winner, 2026 Treasure Coast Community’s Choice Awards. We handle commercial and association painting across the Treasure Coast, including Jensen Beach and Fort Pierce.
If your SIRS came back with a painting and waterproofing line and you need a real proposal to fund it, request a free estimate or call (772) 222-3227 and we will schedule a walk with your manager and your engineer.
KB Painting & Refinishing — family-owned, founded in 2019, serving the Treasure Coast and South Florida with our own W-2 crew and no subcontractors. Insured. Sherwin-Williams products. Nothing in this article is legal, engineering, or financial advice; confirm your association’s obligations with your attorney and reserve professional.
