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May 22, 2003 - The Everglades Hotel, one of the oldest hotels in Miami-Dade County, has been sold and stopped taking reservations two days ago, likely for good. The new owners, Cabi Developers, an Aventura-based subsidiary of GICSA of Mexico, plan to raze the 77-year old building and replace it with a commercial or condominium tower.
"With the Performing Arts Center and all the new development in downtown, we want to acquire customers that live and work in downtown," Jacobo Cababie, Cabi's director said Wednesday. The company is also building condo towers on Aventura's Turnberry Isle. "The old building will come down."
The deal closed Tuesday, and the sale price was not disclosed.
Cababie said his team is about to line up architects to explore what next to do with the site.
Fifty-eight of the hotel's 376 rooms are still occupied, none by long-term renters, according to its front desk manager. No new customers can check in.
"It's not easy," said Nora Machado, the hotel's director of sales and marketing, as she turned would-be customers away. "And we do not know what's going to happen next."
When the Everglades Hotel opened in 1926, Calvin Coolidge was president and the revolutionary Leon Trotsky had just been ousted from Russia. The hotel was one of four buildings in Miami to erect a Giralda Tower modeled on the original in Seville, Italy, though the Everglades' structure was removed in the early 1960s in a push toward a more modern look.
During World War II, the Navy took over the hotel, using it for officer quarters, a sick bay and a receiving station for enlisted men.
The hotel was also home to Florida's first television station, WTVJ, which later became Channel 4 then NBC 6, according to Miami historian Paul George.
Considered swank for decades, thanks to several expensive renovations, the hotel slumped toward disrepair in recent years. The finish on the front desk is peeling, the mirrors yellowed with years of smoke. Guests complained about power outages, lack of plumbing and a thick, musty smell in the rooms.
"It needs upkeep and repair, but even with downtown's ups and downs over the last 40 years, the hotel was viable, and busy," said George. The closing, he said, "is sad, it really is." The hotel has not been designated a historic structure, leaving it vulnerable to demolition, George said.
Any hopes for the hotel's restoration were dashed earlier this year, upon news that would-be buyers from Dallas, the La Quinta hotel chain, deemed the hotel's purchase and renovation too costly.
The Teamsters owned the hotel until the late 1970s, when it changed hands with some frequency but stayed a union shop, a rarity in Florida. The most recent owners were Tropero Investments of the Netherlands Antilles, and Premium Investment Properties of Florida, according to Jim Rogers, the real estate agent who represented the sellers.
The sale throws into doubt the future of the hotels' 45 staff members, many of whom have worked at the Everglades for decades: Machado has been there for 14 years; Virgilio Fernandez, the assistant general manager until Tuesday, for 20 years. Teresa Dubro, who spent Wednesday afternoon putting old papers through a shredder, has been an executive assistant since 1978.
Jorge Sanesteban, president of Local 355, the hotel's union, said he negotiated two weeks of severance pay for each hotel worker, but conceded the additional pay would not go far enough to see workers through.
"A lot are getting on in years, and that's the sad part," Sanesteban said. "Their opportunities are limited in today's job market, and language restrictions are severe for some." The mood at the hotel on Wednesday was one of dismay and resignation as employees, drawn and teary, began to grapple the enormity of the news.
"I think this is it," said Luis Martin, who has worked at the Everglades' front desk for 20 years. He turns 70 next month. "I think now it's time to retire."
Article by By Cara Buckley, The Miami Herald
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
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