1618-1 Versailles giving up as Hotel , going Condo DATE: Thursday, August 25, 1983 EDITION: NEIGHBORS
SECTION: NEIGHBORS MB PAGE: 2 LENGTH: 53 lines
ILLUSTRATION: photo: Versailles Hotel
SOURCE/CREDIT LINE: SUSAN FALUDI Herald Staff Writer
VERSAILLES GIVING UP AS HOTEL, GOING CONDO
. After having 50-per-cent occupancy rates and a summer season so poor it
wasn't worth opening the doors, the Versailles Hotel has had enough.
The art deco oceanfront hotel, which once drew countless vacationers to
its famous comedy club and dances under the stars, is going condo this month.
Slightly less than $30,000 will buy a one-room apartment with standard
hotel drapes, a chest of drawers, two beds, a refrigerator and a color
television.
"Adverse economic factors" forced the Versailles to close for the first
time in April, general manager Milt Tobin said. When the hotel could manage
only a brief opening for the July 4th weekend and the Elks convention in
August, management thought that the hotel should try something more
profitable.
The Versailles, 3425 Collins Ave., had already attempted to convert to
condominiums last fall but "recalled the deal because of basic restructuring
problems, " Tobin said.
But after a tough summer, the hotel's owners decided to convert for real,
he said. About 30 condominiums in the 274-room hotel have been sold in the
past two weeks, mostly to Dade residents who want to use them as vacation
homes.
The hotel will reopen by Thanksgiving and continue to take regular hotel
guests in about 60 per cent of the rooms. But eventually all the rooms will
become condos.
The 1940 art deco hotel, with its columns, sweeping staircase and
spacious lobby, once drew hundreds of Beach visitors to watch top comics at
the Alan Gale Comedy Club and to its night dances by the pool with the Pupi
Campo Band. But those days ended in the 1950s, Tobin said.
"People have to face facts, " said Bennett( Lifter, who is one of three
Versailles owners. "You can't survive on three months of business in the
winter. Unless they come up with an attraction like Disney World or some kind
of major entertaintment or even gambling here, you will be seeing a lot of
hotels going condo."
Versailles management is not the first to come to that conclusion. The
Carillon Hotel, which closed in May, will reopen before the winter season
with apartments to lease. And eventually it will convert to time-share
condominiums.
The broker the Versailles retained to sell its condominiums has already
converted three Collins Avenue motels in Sunny Isles to condos and has a few
others in the works.
"I'm telling you, " said Warren Rapkin of Condo-Plan Sales Corp., the
broker for the Versailles, "The concept is here, and I think the reason is
that Miami Beach is not a teriffic place to come to any more. Business is not
so good. Hotel owners don't have a choice. "
KEYWORDS: VERSAILLES-HOTEL PROFILE
TAG: 8303080375
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