MIAMI – It’s been nearly 10 months since the city of Miami deemed a historic downtown high-rise unsafe — but owners say the building is completely safe.
The unsafe structure sign — posted after a sudden March evacuation — is still up at the Huntington Building and its 14 owners are technically not supposed to be there.
But they’ve been able to come and go as they please — at least until a Local 10 News crew came Wednesday and the building’s manager showed up to kick frustrated business owner Dilana Alexander and reporter Glenna Milberg out.
City officials said they found an issue with a fire exit at the century-old building, located at 168 SE First St. Tenants in the commercial building have been skeptical since day one and even firefighters questioned why on the day the building was evacuated.
“You should be having updates and monthly at least monthly board meetings to tell everybody else what’s going on. Nothing,” Alexander said.
The issue has since been fixed. The building manager, who is also an owner, admitted as much when Local 10 reporter Glenna Milberg asked him about it.
Building managers shut the elevators off as Milberg and Alexander left the building, so they took the perfectly-safe stairs.
But back in the lobby, Alexander learned there were people still in the building doing business. She called police.
“l witnessed people leaving to a back door. Based on the gentleman, they were having a party upstairs,” a Miami police officer said. “I’m gonna do a report. OK, we’re gonna put all the information.”
The person in the building for what police called a “party” was the building manager.
If you’re finding all of this confusing, so do the owners, who are literally losing hundreds of thousands as the building stays closed, with no answers from the city or their own board.
Those are answers Local 10 News has been working to get, so far, to no avail.