CCFJ.NET: Is this the condo from hell?
Article and Video Courtesy of Channel 10 News Miami
By Bob Norman
June 20, 2015
The dream of living on the ocean is alive and well in Hollywood Beach.
“It was my dream to live on the beach in beautiful Florida,” said Yelena Kazakova, who owns a unit in the Aquarius condo there. “The sun, the ocean, just every day you wake up and you see this beauty and it lifts up your spirit.”
| But Kazakova, a physician’s assistant, reality crashed in, quite literally. Last summer, for instance, the ceiling over the once pristine lobby caved in during a flood and it remains a mess. The gym has suffered a similar fate, with gutted ceilings and walls. The Aquarius board of directors – which has been a veritable game of musical chairs during recent years — says the entire foundation of the building is crumbling. |
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“There has been nothing but chaos,” said Kazakova’s neighbor, Paul Mangiamele, a part-time resident who happens to own the Bennigan’s restaurant chain. “Chaos in the sense of construction projects that never seem to finish. We can’t use the pool. We can’t use the lobby. We can’t use the west pool. We can’t use the fitness center.”
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In all roughly $6 million has been spent on the building during the past five years or so. About $4 million of that came from Donald Trump, who agreed to pay that amount to Aquarius when he built the Trump Hollywood high-rise next door.
“We were assured because of the Trump property next to us and the amount of money paid to the Aquarius units that assessments would never occur for the lifetime of our stay here,” said Mangiamele. “It gets to be suspicious when it’s now assessment after assessment.” Read more: |
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