Developer kicks out Miami school hours after purchasing building, sparking court fight

Shortly after kindergarten classes ended Friday at a private Miami academy near Brickell Avenue, the school’s new landlord was ready with bad news: The building was closing, locks were changing and nobody could return to the premises, effective immediately.

“In the interests of the health and safety of all persons, including children, the premises are hereby immediately closed, and all persons should vacate,” lawyer David Everett Marko wrote Friday to an owner of the KLA kindergarten and day care, hours after Marko’s client bought the one-story building that houses the school and a dry cleaner on waterfront property off Southwest First Avenue.

“Purchaser sincerely regrets any inconvenience this short notice of closure [causes] and stands ready to assist the School,” Marko wrote.

Court filings show Marko’s client, a holding company led by a developer of short-term rental vacation buildings and other projects, cited chemical contamination from the dry cleaner’s shop to declare the premises unsafe for occupation. In court filings, KLA Schools of Brickell cited an emergency inspection by its own environmental surveyor who found no health hazards.

Now KLA is scrambling to prepare for online learning Tuesday morning for about 200 affected children at roughly the same time a judge is scheduled to hear whether the school may open its doors again at that location.

“You can imagine the shock,” Francisco Soler said from his bike outside the KLA building Monday afternoon, his 3-year-old son, Gael, in a seat behind him. The school opened for the year in late August, but now parents are forced to revert back to learn-from-home disruptions.

“One of us has to take a week’s vacation to educate our child again,” Soler said, recalling the online sessions KLA provided during the school year earlier in the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a motion for an injunction filed Monday afternoon, KLA lawyer Michael Tein said the new owner never let the school know of the “so-called hazard” ahead of the purchase. In asking a judge to let school employees back in the building, Tein wrote: “It seems like the Landlord is simply trying to remove the School from the property by any possible means, without regard for the law.”

KLA leases its building at 600 SW First Ave. and planned to stay there while constructing a new campus nearby. The younger children attend classes at the closed building, while another KLA school holds classes through fifth grade in a building across the street. That property is owned by a different landlord, and remains open.

County records don’t show when 99SW7 Holdings LLC purchased the property, but Marko said in his letter that the deal closed Friday. The manager of that holding company is Harvey Hernandez, chief executive of NGD Homesharing, a developer of short-term vacation rentals that was an Airbnb partner. Hernandez is also CEO of Newgard Development Group, developer of Brickell House and other luxury projects.

Lawyers for the new owner declined to comment.

The KLA motion was written before the school’s lawyer was able to see the environmental report used to justify the closure. Judge Jennifer Bailey told 99SW7 Holdings to turn over its environmental reports Monday, but barred the school from sharing the findings without permission from the property owner.

She also ordered the owner to allow KLA’s employees access to the property “for purposes of continuity of operations,” ahead of a 9 a.m. Tuesday hearing before Judge Antonio Arzola to consider the school’s request to reverse the building closure. After the order, KLA teachers and administrators began arriving at the school building to carry away computers, easels and other equipment they’ll need to hold classes online Tuesday.

In a note to parents dated Sunday, school administrator Julie Brooks said: “We are truly in disbelief with what has occurred,” and she said the new owner was “acting in an extremely unacceptable manner and with no validity.”

Tein said the school wants the right to resume operations once its experts can conduct an extensive environmental study to show the facility is safe.

“We will not let any children go back to that building until we’re 100% certain it’s safe,” he said.

This story was originally published September 7, 2021 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Developer kicks out Miami school hours after purchasing building, sparking court fight."