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1655-1 African American/Blacks [RETURN) to continue or type q to return to Menu: mh LANDMARK SHELBORNE HOTEL 09/20/1992 THE MIAMI HERALD Copyright (c) 1992, The Miami Herald DATE: Sunday, September 20, 1992 EDITION: FINAL SECTION: NEIGHBORS MB PAGE: 2 LENGTH: 41 lines ILLUSTRATION: photo: Built in 1940 the 255-room Shelborne Hotel (n) . SOURCE/CREDIT LINE: DAVID KIDWELL Herald Staff Writer LANDMARK SHELBORNE HOTEL REOPENS WITH NEW MANAGERS The historic Shelborne Hotel, closed since the eve of Hurricane Andrew, reopened this weekend under new management. The Galbut family is now running the 255-room hotel, which they d owned in the mid-1980s. "The only guests we have right now are those we've given rooms to free (for relief workers and storm victims) , " said Beach hotelier Russell Galbut, who took over the hotel's management Sept. 3. "Now we're ready to open all the way. " Hurricane Andrew did an estimated $1 million worth of damage to the 1940 landmark hotel, blowing out most of the hotel's windows, Galbut said. / The owner of the hotel, Toronto investor and hotelier Andrew Chung, decided not to reopen upon returning to the 1801 Collins Ave. property after the storm, Galbut said. "They were just shocked and overwhelmed by the damage, " Galbut said. Chung did not return calls from The Herald. Chung's company, Emerald International Investments, filed for bankruptcy protection in 1991. Galbut is the hotel's bankruptcy receiver. Galbut and his brother, Abraham Galbut, said the hotel is being redone with new carpets, wallpaper and other improvements. The hotel had its glory days in the 1950s and '60s, when it housed the Miss Universe contestants and their guests. The Galbuts, who own several hotel and condominium properties in Miami Beach, said they expect to buy the Shelborne at its bankruptcy sale set for Oct. 8. In 1984, the Galbuts bought the Shelborne for $3.4 million, records show. Three ye ater, they sold it to Chung for $6.4 million. At the time of Emerald International Investment's bankruptcy filing, the company owed almost $6 million to various mortgage holders, $836,000 in bills for operations, and $59,330 in state sales taxes, $3, 575 in resort taxes, and more than $187,000 in property taxes, court records show. TAG: 9205260176 10 of 33, 15 Terms mh SHELBORNE AIMS AT MIDDLE CLASS 10/11/1987 THE MIAMI HERALD Copyright (c) 1987, The Miami Herald DATE: Sunday, October 11, 1987 EDITION: FINAL SECTION: NEIGHBORS MB PAGE: 3 LENGTH: 68 lines ILLUSTRATION: photo: Jay LITT* SOURCE/CREDIT LINE: STEPHEN SMITH Herald Staff Writer • SHELBORNE AIMS AT MIDDLE CLASS Jay Litt aspires to middledom, to vanilla, to eggs not caviar. Jay Litt also aspires to run a hotel, the Shelborne, that makes lots and lots of money. His credo is delight and conquer. "We're just going to be a regular boring hotel, " said Litt, president of the company that will operate the Shelborne for its new owner. "We want to bring back to Miami Beach an element that hasn't been here for 25 years -- the middle-class tourist, not the high-roller casino gambler. "Our definition of marketing is giving people what they want." They started giving and tourists started getting -- middle- of-the-road service to middle-class visitors -- last week. Litt's RJF Management took over after the Galbut family sold the Shelborne, 1801 Collins Ave. , to a Canadian group whose principal investor is Andrew Chung. They paid $6.4 million for the 255-room, 47-year-old hotel. So the cash register keeps ringing in Miami Beach, big hotels turning over as if in a fast-paced game of Monopoly. The Konover, the Ritz Plaza, the Barcelona and the Holiday Inn. And now the Shelborne. "All the major hotels are changing hands, " said Murray Gold, executive director of the Miami Beach Resort Hotel Association. "And they're not putting in $200,000 or $300,000. You hear figures like $5 million, $8 million. " The Shelborne deal was struck in the high-above-Miami offices of Broad & Cassel, a big law firm. It was just like in the movies: cups and cups of coffee, ties loosened, marathon sessions that drifted on until dawn. Finally, about 4 a.m. Oct. 2, the Galbuts handed over the Shelborne to Emerald International Investments, the company set up by Chung and his group as the Florida owner of the hotel. The deal was fair, Russell Galbut said. When the Galbuts bought the hotel in November 1984, they paid almost $3.4 million. It was fair and satisfying -- but not all fun. "It's really like a part of me is gone, " Galbut said. "It's something that the family enjoyed as a family place. My nephews and nieces loved playing there, going there for the Jewish holidays, the Fourth of July." There are other places for them to go -- the Galbuts still own three other South Beach hotels, the Renaissance, Plaza and Plaza South. Those are smaller properties, not the kind of signature hotel that the pink-and-green Shelborne is. So the Galbuts, a clan of lawyers and real estate speculators known across the Beach, mourn the passing of the Shelborne from their family. But Russell Galbut mourns not ,at all for his city: "This is not to say we don't have faith in Miami Beach. We have more faith in the Beach today than we've ever had. We never put the Shelborne up for sale, we never marketed it, we never did anything like that. "It was just something that came in from the blue. " And with it came Jay Litt, once an executive with the Sheraton hotel chain. He'll tell you that he has been on ego trips, been through that faze of wanting to run the world's most elegant hotel. Now, he just wants a simple place, with nice rooms, nice guests, nice everything. The Shelborne's new owner figures to spend about $1 million during the next two years ripping apart every room and making it over into a new, medium-priced chain hotel. They will strip away the mute peach paint from the high lobby walls. They will open a convenience store in one corner, so that mom can get milk for the 1 kids late at night. That, Litt said, is what South Beach needs. "They need to be normal hotel operations with normal people and normal employees, " he said. "When you think of South Beach now, you don't think normal. " TAG: 8703170853 14 of 33, 19 Terms mh NEW BUYER PLANS RENOVATION 10/07/1987 THE MIAMI HERALD Copyright (c) 1987, The Miami Herald DATE: Wednesday, October 7, 1987 EDITION: FINAL 1 SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: 2B LENGTH: 141 lines SOURCE/CREDIT LINE: Herald Staff MEMO: IN BRIEF NEW BUYER PLANS RENOVATION OF 255-ROOM SHELBORNE HOTEL MIAMI BEACH Another Miami Beach hotel has been bought by an out-of- towner. A $6.4 million deal for the 255-room Shelborne Hotel was finished before dawn Friday. The new owner took control not long after. The seller: the Galbut family, an entrenched Beach clan with a swath of real estate holdings on the island. The buyer: a Toronto investor who owns a hotel in the Canadian city. Andrew Chung formed a separate company, Emerald International Investments, to buy the Shelborne, 1801 Collins Ave. "I think they have a renovation plan, " said David Shear, the attorney who handled the deal for Chung. "I think that encompasses making it more up-to-date." Property records show that the Galbut family bought the Shelburne in November 1984 for nearly $3.4 million. The pink and green hotel has a value, for tax purposes, of $2.7 million. COPS SHOOT MAN AIMING GUN AT THEM MIAMI An unidentified man with a rifle was shot Tuesday night by undercover Miami police officers. The man, shot in the stomach, was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital, where he was in critical condition early today. Charges are pending. According to police, two plainclothes narcotics officers pulled up in an unmarked maroon Oldsmobile to Northwest 58th Street and First Place. While stopped at a stop sign, the two heard a click. Standing at the corner was a man with a rifle. The gun was pointed directly at the officers. One of the officers fired once at the man, who turned and ran south about 30 to 40 yards. Both officers, who were not identified, got out of the Oldsmobile and ran after him. One fired a second shot. They found the man nearby. REFUSENIK: 'GLASNOST' NOT WORKING T For two months, Tatiana Zunshein has been telling Americans of the horrors of her husband's three-year imprisonment in a Siberian camp and of the continuing plight of other Soviet Jewish refuseniks. Tuesday, she brought that message to Miami. Addressing the board of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation at its headquarters, 4200 Biscayne Blvd. , Zunshein said: "The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is at an impasse. It's now time to act." Glasnost, the new openness policy of the Soviet government, and the recent emigration of notable refuseniks have changed nothing except America's perception, she said. "And what is happening? Really nothing." The story of Zunshein and her husband Zachar began six years ago, when they first applied for permission to leave the Soviet Union. In 1984, Zachar was charged with "anti-Soviet fabrications, " according to a case history of the South Florida Conference on Soviet Jewry. He was sent to a labor camp. In her efforts to free her husband, Zunshein made contact with the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews. Her speaking tour to the United States is in part to thank them for their help. Last March, Zachar Zunshein was freed from prison and the two emigrated to Israel. SIMULATED PIPE BOMB PUZZLES POLICE Miami police are investigating how and why a six-inch device simulating a pipe bomb was left at a construction site Tuesday morning. A construction supervisor found a pipe wrapped in duct tape and attached to a blasting cap and nine-volt battery at 9:20 a.m. at 5821 NW Seventh Ave., police spokesman Reginald Roundtree said. "There was no explosive device," Roundtree said. 2 PHONE SWINDLERS GET PRISON TERMS Two Fort Lauderdale brothers charged with swindling MCI Telecommunications out of $264,000 in long-distance telephone calls were sentenced in Miami federal court to prison terms. U.S. District Judge Lenore C. Nesbitt sentenced John A. Maragoudakis, 30, to four years in prison and ordered him to make restitution to MCI with the amount to be determined by a probation officer. George A. Maragoudakis, 27, was sentenced to two years in prison and fined $10,000. Both men were sentenced to five years' probation. The brothers had pleaded guilty to two counts of a 51-count indictment that charged them with wire fraud and defrauding MCI by using personal identification codes without the knowledge or permission of subscribers. MCI lost about $264, 000 in the scheme, the U.S. attorney's office said. 1,000 BECOME CITIZENS AT CEREMONY Nearly 1,000 immigrants pledged allegiance to the United States and became citizens Tuesday during ceremonies at the Dade County Auditorium, 2901 W. Flagler St. The ceremonies are held monthly, with a federal judge presiding. The next is scheduled for Nov. 3. MAN WOUNDED BY POLICE BULLET 1 �. _ z_ NORTHWEST DADE A man being chased by a Metro-Dade police cruiser after he refused to halt for a routine traffic stop was slightly wounded in the left arm by a police bullet Tuesday while being arrested. Frank Delano Gibbs, a Dade County resident, was in good condition Tuesday night in Jackson Memorial Hospital. After being shot once by officer J.D. Patterson, he walked to the ambulance. The shooting took place in the back yard of a one-story home at 1395 NW 95th Ter. Gibbs was speeding south in a white Ford van, a marked patrol car close behind, when he turned onto Northwest 95th Terrace. He sped through part of the front yard of the home and was met by an immovable object: he collided head on with another marked cruiser trying to head him off. Officer Don White, behind the wheel of the intercepting Crown Victoria cruiser, suffered minor injuries. Taken to Jackson, he was treated and released. After the crash, Gibbs bailed out of the van and ran to the back yard. He was shot during the ensuing scuffle. Gibbs, 39, is charged with criminal mischief, fleeing a police officer, reckless driving, leaving the scene of an accident with injuries, driving with a suspended license and resisting arrest without violence. ANTI-PREJUDICE PROGRAM GETS GRANT SOUTH FLORIDA The Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith has received a $75,000 grant from CenTrust Savings Bank to extend a tricounty educational program aimed at ending prejudice and discrimination. The grant will extend for three years A World of Difference, a campaign in Dade, Broward and Monroe counties that has trained hundreds of teachers and students in cultural awareness. The program, developed two years ago in Boston, mobilizes a community's public and private resources and provides teacher training, classroom curriculum, activities and televised programming in an area's cultural groups and prejudice and discrimination. KEYWORDS: MI POLICE SHOOTING FAKE BOMB MD TAG: 8703160506 15 of 33, 6 Terms mh SHELBORNE WANTS TO BUILD 02/23/1986 THE MIAMI HERALD Copyright (c) 1986, The Miami Herald DATE: Sunday, February 23, 1986 EDITION: FINAL SECTION: NEIGHBORS MB PAGE: 2 LENGTH: 67 lines ILLUSTRATION: photo: Drawing:The proposed SHELBORNE expansion would cross over 18th Street SOURCE/CREDIT LINE: PHIL KUNTZ Herald Staff Writer SHELBORNE WANTS TO BUILD ADDITION OVER CITY STREET The family that owns the Shelborne Hotel on Collins Avenue wants Miami 1 ' Beach to allow a 30-story addition to tower over the beachfront end of 18th Street. The Galbut family's proposal is the first plan to build new hotel rooms within walking distance of the soon-to-be expanded convention center -- something planners say the city badly needs. The proposal was revealed publicly last week for the first time to a City Commission subcommittee. The committee put it on hold for at least 30 days while city administrators draft rules for leasing air rights over city property. 1 Shelborne manager Russell Galbut, anticipating objections to the plan, disclosed it and immediately went on the defensive. "I happen to be an advocate of leaving open space alone, " he told the subcommittee. "But there is such a thing as logical development and I don't consider 18th Street to be open space." The city's chief planner, Jud Kurlancheek, wasn't impressed. "We' re extremely concerned regarding the visual aspects of the proposal, " Kurlancheek said. "This city has a history of blocking views to the ocean. " The $30 million plan calls for a four-story, 250-foot wide archway over 18th Street, car elevators for four stories of parking spaces above that and 22 stories of hotel rooms on top. Renderings by the architect, the firm of Borrelli Frankel Blitstein, show the building dwarfing other nearby structures. Architect Markus Frankel, whose firm also helped design the convention center expansion, said the Shelborne plan fits in with the studies because of the archway. "It will be an effective draw -- a magnet with a big hole in it, " Frankel said. Kurlancheek isn't so sure. "We want to make sure that the public has easy access, both physically and visually, to the beach, " he said. Eighteenth Street is especially important because it can be seen from the convention center. "Perhaps this corridor should be open and perhaps other corridors could be closed." With the addition, the Shelborne would have 624 rooms. A proposed state constitutional amendment on the November ballot to allow casinos would allow gambling in hotels with more than 500 rooms. Andrew McLean, an architect with the Atlanta firm that headed the convention center expansion project, said Friday he had not yet seen or heard of Frankel's Shelborne plan. "There may be ways to maintain the vista through there without losing the visual connection, " he said. "For the economy of the convention center to work, you will have some towers. The vista is the key to it. It's not an issue of open space." Commissioner Stanley Arkin, a subcommittee member, said he has "some reservations" about leasing 18th Street's air rights when there still is undeveloped private property in the city. He said groups of smaller hotels • could be bought and razed for new hotels. Commissioner Abe Resnick, also a subcommittee member, said he likes the Shelborne plan. Stephen Nostrand, chairman of the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau, said he is happy hotel proposals have begun to surface. "This could be used as a catalyst. I think its just the tip of the iceberg." EXPANSION ON HOLD AS CITY STUDIES LEASING AIR RIGHTS TAG: 8601160284 23 of 33, 10 Terms Transfer complete. 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