Trouble in Water World
A Flooded Aqua Building Burglarized After Evacuation

“Basically it got so bad the elevator pit flooded out and all the floors from the 10th on down flooded.”

By Erik Bojnansky

A building in an exclusive Allison Island community remains empty of residents after it was flooded by a broken sprinkler line nearly a month ago.

And while the Chatham Building at 201 Aqua Ave. was unoccupied the condo was repeatedly burglarized, according to the Miami Beach Police Department.

There were four incidents of thefts at the building, said Detective Bobby Hernandez, MBPD spokesman.

“The units were all left open following a water leak and receiving the order by the city of Miami Beach,” Hernandez stated in an e-mail.

Among the items stolen: two I-Pods, at least five televisions (each worth more than $1,000), two watches (valued at $2,500 and $5,000), two diamond rings, a $300 bottle of Cristal champagne and a $500 Sony digital camera, according to police reports. The incidents occurred between July 28 and August 5.

From 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., security is minimal, Hernandez said. “No arrests have been made and no suspects have been identified. There is no surveillance video.”

“It is being investigated,” said Lilia Veitia, senior vice president of Continental Management, which oversees Aqua’s operations. As for security, she said it is provided on the entire island and in each building, including the Chatham. “Obviously there are security changes being proposed.”

Developed by Dacra founder Craig Robins, Aqua is an 8.5-acre enclave on Allison Island. Robins reportedly invested $225 million converting the old St. Francis Hospital into his vision of “new urbanism.” Besides locally acclaimed planner Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Robins hired several respected architects from Miami and New York who designed buildings later named after them. Condo units go for as high as $3 million.

William Chatham, president of the Architectural League of New York, converted the old hospital parking garage into the Chatham Building. “My struggle was to turn an unfriendly building without windows (a sort of medieval fortress) into an acceptable image. I had to transform it and make it tropical. This building is the gatekeeper of the whole project,” Chatham told art writer Alfredo Triff for his May 19, 2005 Miami New Times article “Futuristic Fusion: A magical merger of art and architecture,” one of several stories about Aqua from magazines and newspapers around the world provided at www.aqua.net.

On July 26 at around 10 p.m. a fire sprinkler main on the 10th floor of the Chatham Building broke, said Andy Villarreal, chief of violations at the Miami Beach Building Department. “By the time the Fire Department responded, the water was running for a good half hour or so. [It] created quite a mess.” No one knew how to shut the water off and the water continued to pour downward for more than an hour, dumping hundreds of gallons of water. “Basically it got so bad the elevator pit flooded out and all the floors from the 10th on down flooded. We had to shut down the power to make sure there were no life safety issues,” Villarreal said. The building was evacuated at midnight of July 27.

Not long afterward, the thefts began. At one point a security guard was arrested when her shoe print matched “the pattern and the size of footprints” in one of the burglarized units, according to an August 5 incident report signed by an Officer Nair (no first name given). The security guard was arrested for a bench warrant that had nothing to do with the burglaries, Detective Hernandez said.

Another August 5 report, prepared by Officer Saballos (no first name given), noted that workers from “Dynamic Restoration” walked around without supervision. The report even listed Dynamic Restoration as a “suspect.”

‘To my knowledge I have not heard any complaints about Dynamic Restoration,” Veitia said. “They did a very good job responding. …”

A front desk employee identified the company as Dynamic Building Restoration, which has offices in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Deland, Fla. A representative from Dynamic Building Restoration declined comment.

Fire Marshal Sonia Machen said an inspection of the Chatham Building’s life safety equipment must be conducted before residents can reoccupy the building.

Comments? E-mail erik@miamisunpost.com.