Contractor repairing hurricane-ravaged high-rise walks off job

By Jane Musgrave
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 17, 2006

The soap opera that has swirled around the reconstruction of the hurricane-ravaged Tiara condominium added another chapter this week when the contractor walked off the job, police were called and residents began questioning whether they will ever be able to return to homes they were forced from nearly 18 months ago.

"It's horrendous," unit owner Sara Smith said Thursday of the turmoil that erupted at her erstwhile home on Singer Island.

Former condominium President Eddie Kisco, who has overseen the estimated $125 million reconstruction project, said he worries that if tempers aren't tamed the situation will get worse.

If Southern Construction doesn't return to the project, work probably won't be completed until well into 2007, he said. At worst, he said, he fears the delay could spur unit owners to sell the once-regal 42-story tower.

"We could lose the building," he said.

Ali Kas, a unit owner who sued the condominium association in January and was voted president of it Feb. 6, said he wasn't willing to let residents be "blackmailed" by Southern Construction.

On Monday, the association was to pay Southern Construction $500,000 of the roughly $23 million the West Palm Beach company says it is owed, residents said.

However, Kas said, he refused to hand over the check until company owner Domingo Castro agreed to sign a far more elaborate contract that includes specifics, such as scope of work and a completion date.

Castro, who didn't return phone calls for comment, refused his demands, Kas said.

On Wednesday, when company officials arrived to remove their equipment, Riviera Beach police were called. City legal officials said it wasn't a police matter.

"We told them we could not stop the contractor from removing their equipment, that it was a civil issue," police spokeswoman Rose Ann Brown said.

The dispute has split residents, with some backing Southern Construction and others siding with Kas and the rest of the newly elected board.

A similar, if not quite as contentious battle, has unfolded roughly 10 miles south at the 1515 Tower on South Flagler Drive in West Palm Beach. Like the Tiara, the high-rise was clobbered by Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne in 2004 and whacked again by Hurricane Wilma last fall.

Upset by the slow progress of the rebuilding, the 1515 condo board fired Carousel Development & Restoration and its engineer, said attorney John Buso, who represents the condominium in its $8.17 million lawsuit against QBE Insurance.

The board has hired a new engineer and is interviewing contractors to resume work on the building that was left with gaping holes in its concrete sides and plywood covering its windows.

Kisco, of the Tiara, said he is hopeful Southern Construction can be lured back.

"The real villain in this is Citizens," he said of Citizens Property Insurance Corp., the state-sponsored homeowner insurer of last resort, which has refused to honor about $60 million in Tiara's claims.

Smith, who has been living at PGA National, said she too would like to see Southern Construction back on the job.

She spent much of Thursday retrieving what's left of her condo's former contents from a warehouse Southern Construction rented for residents to store their belongings. The lease on the warehouse is up March 1.

Still, she said, while she loved living at the Tiara, she doesn't plan to return.

The couple has put their 32nd floor unit on the market for $475,000.