Historic Miami Beach hotel may be demolished after report found ‘structural damage’
The curtains may be closing on the historic Miami Beach hotel where the Beatles once performed, as the city considers demolishing the Deauville Beach Resort after an engineering report found that the property sustained “substantial structural damage.”
In a Jan. 7 memo, City Manager Alina Hudak wrote that the city’s building official would issue a demolition order for the property at 6701 Collins Ave. if she could verify the conclusions of the engineering report, which was commissioned by the hotel owners as part of a demolition application filed last month. Building Official Ana Salgueiro is scheduled to inspect the property Friday along with a team of city engineers and consulting engineers, before deciding the building’s fate.
The engineering report, which the city will refer to Miami-Dade County staff for peer review, recommends demolishing the 15-story hotel before the start of the 2022 hurricane season in June.
“Unfortunately, the Building Official finds that the damage to the Deauville is significant and substantial,” Hudak wrote in the memo. “In the event that the interior conditions depicted in the report are verified by the Building Department at the inspection January 14, 2022, then a demolition order by the Building Official is likely due to the significant structural damage outlined in the report.”
The hotel, constructed in 1957 and designated historic in 2004, closed in 2017 after an electrical fire and Hurricane Irma damaged the building. In the years since, the property has racked up $1.7 million in fines for not complying with city directives to bring the building up to code, according to the city.
The city sued the owners of the hotel, Deauville Associates, LLC, in 2019 for failing to maintain the building and requested that a judge appoint a receiver to take over managerial duties. The judge in the case, Judge Michael Hanzman, is also overseeing the class-action lawsuit related to the Champlain Towers South collapse in Surfside that killed 98 people.
In October, Hanzman ordered that the hotel owner, Deauville Associates LLC, submit an application for total demolition to the city and for the city to process the application “expeditiously.” Belinda Meruelo is listed as the manager of the entity in corporate records.
Mayor Dan Gelber said it’s obvious the owners of the Deauville intended to let the property fall into disrepair in order to demolish it. He said the city has tried everything in its power to stop it.
“Nobody wanted this outcome,” he said. “Our legal department has been in white-knuckled litigation with the owners for years.”
He noted that if the building is demolished, city code authorizes the Historic Preservation Board to require the replication of the original structure.
At a Tuesday meeting, the board voted unanimously to recommend that the city engage an independent structural engineer with historic preservation experience to inspect the property and explore alternatives to a complete demolition, including saving architecturally significant sections of the building, like the covered entrance or the building that houses the Napoleon Ballroom where the Beatles and other famous acts played.
Before a decision is made, the city will confirm whether the engineering report is accurate, Gelber said. He urged against the “politicization” of the decision, which he said would be based in science and building safety.
“We have contested and fought the owners for years but if the property is unstable and unsafe, you cannot politicize the decision as to what to do,” he said. “But you can however require that the relevant ordinances are applied to their maximum extent and that these owners don’t profit from their neglect.”
An attorney for Deauville Associates, Jose Chanfrau, said in a statement Monday that the owners also tried to avoid “this unfortunate situation.”
In the past, the owners have signaled that a lack of money may be an impediment to the speedy renovation of the hotel.
Chanfrau said his clients still plan to reopen the Deauville.
“The hotel did everything in its power to avoid this unfortunate situation and should the Deauville be demolished it will be redeveloped and reopened in a grand fashion,” he wrote. “The Deauville’s owners are working on plans to submit to the City of Miami Beach to procure required approvals as soon as possible.”
Still pushing to save the building
News of the potential demolition frustrated the city’s preservationists and some residents, who expressed their outrage on social media and in emails to city leaders.
North Beach resident Elizabeth Latone, who can see the Deauville from her condo in a nearby building, told the Miami Herald that she moved to the neighborhood because it was part of a historic district. Watching the Deauville deteriorate has been sad, she said, but she would hate to see it get completely demolished when there may be areas of the building that could be saved.
“I think they can save a lot of it,” she said. “I really do. I walk by it every day.”
Miami Beach Planning Board member Tanya Bhatt said she was taken aback by the sudden push to quickly demolish the Deauville about 5 years after the city became aware of how its owners were neglecting the hotel. In an email to city commissioners, she said it was like watching a “slow-motion train wreck.”
Bhatt and other residents have advocated for preserving the Deauville. Her daughter, Julia Bhatt, recorded a guitar cover of the Beatles song “Help” outside the hotel as part of a campaign organized by the Miami Design Preservation League. The Fab Four taped their 1964 performance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” at the Deauville.
“It seems that for years insufficient efforts have been made to protect this contributing building with an irreplaceable history, iconic architectural details, and significant economic impact to the surrounding community,” Tanya Bhatt wrote in her email. “It’s not too late to right the wrongs but it must happen now.”
A vote from the Historic Preservation Board is typically required prior to the demolition of a building in a historic district, but there is an exception for orders from the building official “when issuance of such permit on an immediate basis is necessary for the public health or safety or to prevent injury to life, limb or property.”
In instances when the board does not weigh in on a demolition application, city code outlines a “presumption” that the demolished building can only be replaced with a new building that has the same height, massing and square footage of the previous structure. The preservation board can increase the square footage “where appropriate,” although it cannot exceed maximum limits in the city code.
Board Chair Jack Finglass, who will depart the board after Tuesday’s meeting due to term limits, said he was disappointed that the city was considering demolition and recounted how several concerned residents contacted him after seeing the Friday evening memo.
“I’m devastated that the process has arrived at this apparent conclusion,” he told the Herald in an interview. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard such an outpouring of angst from ordinary citizens.”
This article has been updated to include information from Tuesday’s Historic Preservation Board meeting.
This story was originally published January 10, 2022 at 6:40 PM with the headline "Historic Miami Beach hotel may be demolished after report found ‘structural damage’."
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