‘End of the road’: Demolition of Deauville hotel in Miami Beach enters next phase

The demolition of the historic Deauville Beach Resort moved forward Tuesday, as construction crews began tearing down the lower portion of the building.

Asbestos removal from the shuttered hotel at 6701 Collins Ave. is now complete, Miami Beach City Manager Alina Hudak said in a memo Tuesday, which allowed demolition of the building’s pool, pool deck, ballrooms and lobby to begin. Bulldozers were at the site to begin the process.

Miami Beach officials issued a permit in March to demolish the 1957 hotel that once hosted the Beatles. Part of the hotel’s driveway canopy and its iconic red sign came down the next day, but the city said asbestos remediation was required before the rest of the building could be demolished.

After the lower portion is bulldozed, the hotel’s 17-story tower is slated for implosion. City spokesperson Melissa Berthier said the lower-portion demolition is expected to take several weeks, but that there is no date set for the implosion because the city has not yet issued a separate required permit.

The latest step in the demolition process comes as Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross is proposing a new luxury condo tower and hotel at the site, designed by world-renowned architect Frank Gehry. A Nov. 8 referendum will ask voters whether to approve increased floor-area ratio at the site, where Ross envisions a 375-foot condo tower in an area that currently has a 200-foot height limit.

Daniel Ciraldo, the executive director of the Miami Design Preservation League, said the continued demolition of the Deauville is “extremely disappointing” for historic-preservation advocates who have pushed for at least part of the structure to be saved.

“Unfortunately, that fell on deaf ears and here we are,” Ciraldo said. “This looks like the end of the road for the Deauville.”

The Design Preservation League unsuccessfully appealed the Deauville’s demolition permit before the Miami-Dade Board of Rules and Appeals earlier this year. An engineer hired by the hotel’s owners, the Meruelo family, had recommended that it be demolished, but the Design Preservation League released its own report challenging that recommendation.

A spokesperson for the Miami-Dade Division of Environmental Resources Management, which oversaw the remediation process, said county officials confirmed the removal of asbestos from the Deauville was complete at an inspection last Friday. Spokesperson Tere Florin said an inspector found that remaining asbestos in the ceiling of the Deauville’s ballroom had been removed, and that bags of material that contained asbestos had been taken off the site.

Elizabeth Latone, who lives near the Deauville and is president of the area’s Allison Park Neighborhood Association, said she was disappointed that the city of Miami Beach didn’t notify her and other nearby residents prior to the phase of demolition that began Tuesday.

The city said earlier this year that no notice was required under the city code because the porte-cochere portion of the building is less than three stories tall. Residents won’t receive any notice until the tower portion of the hotel is set to be imploded, spokesperson Melissa Berthier said in March.

“This is a big deal,” Latone said. “This is not just some two-story building that’s being demolished.”

While some residents have argued for the historic hotel to be preserved, city officials including Mayor Dan Gelber say the development proposal by Ross and Gehry solves a problem for the city, which has sparred in court with the hotel’s owners over millions of dollars in code violations imposed by city inspectors. The property has been closed since an electrical fire in 2017.