Hello Islander Community,

Thank you to everyone that made time to vote in the last election. We appreciate your support and hope to fulfill the expectations you all have for the upcoming year. Since the response to common area modernization was overwhelming, we are working hard to make that a reality.

We know it’s an important topic and the source of the upcoming assessment, so I have put together a brief summary to explain the history and scope of the upcoming project.

When I brought up the topic of renovating the hallways came in an email to the board in September of 2016, it was added as an agenda item. In the meeting, I was asked to start gathering bids and the some members of the board would do the same. I met with various subcontractors to give me quotes on their respective pieces of the project.

The scope of work for this was to include:

-DEMO OF CARPET, TILE, AND CEILING IN HALLWAYS ONLY
-PAINT WALLS,DOORM, AND BASEBOARDS IN HALLWAYS ONLY
-INSTALL 5 1/4 in WOOD BASEBOARDS IN HALLWAYS ONLY
-INSTALL DRYWALL CEILING IN HALLWAYS ONLY
-REMOVE AND REPLACE EXISTING LIGHTS (LABOR ONLY) IN HALLWAYS ONLY

I offered my services to the last board as the project manager because it would be something that could be done along side Francisco. The plan was for us to coordinate the subcontractors in order to save money (as they are all licensed/insured and will put the necessary separate permits anyway).

The previous board insisted that we MUST use a “general contractor” so we would have to find one to put all subcontractors under their umbrella.

We did as they requested and had a few companies come out and survey the work to be done. We asked if they would honor the subcontractor’s prices I had collected and then add their percentage for admin, coordinating, insurance, and profit, since the board required this.

Below is a breakdown of the quotes from the previous board for the scope of work listed above in bold:

VERZURA CONTRUCTION: $236,632
AP CONSTRUCTION: $377,474
RC CONSTRUCTION: $332,000
CAPITAL CONTRACTOR: $336,536
CONSTRUCT BUILD: $231,200
CONTINUUM CONSTRUCTION: $231,520
KPROFIN: $248,240

We found that the KLR Construction was able to match the prices of the subcontractors we would have chosen and have done many large projects including “The Grand/Doubletree” located on Bayshore Drive in Miami. If any of you are aware, this is a very large condo/hotel property in Edgewater near the Venetian Causeway. Below is KLR Construction’s original bid also based on the scope of work above.

KLR: $152,083

After attending a few more meetings another resident inquired about also updating the storage rooms. This prompted an investigation into the storage, electrical and laundry rooms, and we realized that we couldn’t update the hallways and leave those other common rooms in their current state. We also found that none of these rooms have any A/C or ventilation. I asked the owner of KLR to bring his A/C subcontractor and we had a meeting with our then maintenance man, Francisco as he has a good understanding of our building. We all agreed that we should run ductwork to those areas and extend the current AC vent to work more effectively in cooling the hallways. Many of you may have noticed that the 2 little vents have to work very hard and are always dripping with condensation which creates mold and ruins the walls and paint. By upgrading the A/C ductwork and sending air around proportionally, we expect that we will have addressed all current issues with each floors common area so our hallway modernization is complete. We also felt we needed to add new door closers and exit signs to truly finish the job properly. Further more, since the floor and demo crews would be here, we decided to add the lobby floor leveling and finish to the scope of work.

Here are the additional items we are adding to bring our new total to $190,110

-DEMO TO INCLUDE STORAGE LOCKERS, TILE IN LAUNDRY ROOM, LOBBY TILE, AND LEVELING 12X12 RAISED SECTION OF LOBBY
-REMOVE AND INSTALL ALL NEW EXIT SIGNS
-REMOVE AND INSTALL NEW DOOR CLOSERS AT NORTH AND SOUTH EXITS TO STAIRCASE (THIS WILL INSURE DOORS CLOSE PROPERLY WITHOUT SLAMMING OR SIMPLY STAYING OPEN)
-INSTALL NEW DRYWALL ON CEILINGS OF LAUNDRY ROOM, AND STORAGE ROOM AS WELL (NOT ONLY HALLWAYS)
-POLISH CONCRETE FLOORS IN LAUNDRY, ELECTRICAL, AND STORAGE ROOMS AND LOBBY AS WELL (AS HALLWAYS)
-BASEBOARDS IN LAUNDRY, ELECTRICAL, AND STORAGE ROOMS AND LOBBY AS WELL (AS HALLWAYS)
-PAINT IN LAUNDRY, ELECTRICAL, AND STORAGE ROOMS AS WELL (AS HALLWAYS)

A/C WORK - ALL PER FRANCISCO’S RECOMMENDATION AND AGREED BY MECHANICAL CONTRACTOR TO IMPROVE AIRFLOW ON EACH FLOOR
-RUN A/C DUCTWORK INTO LAUNDRY,ELECTRICAL, AND STORAGE ROOMS(CURRENTLY NONE)
-RUN MORE DUCTWORK ACROSS HALL TO CREAT BETTER AIR CIRCULATION AND ELIMINATE CONSTANT CONDENSATION FROM THE ONE OPENING THATEXISTS NOW AND RERUN ALL DUCTWORK NEW FROM THE UNIT ON EACH FLOOR TO ENSURE THEY ARE PERFECTLY SEALED
-NEW FRAMING/DRYWALL AROUND NEW DUCTWORK
-ALL MATERIALS INCLUDED IN THIS ADDITIONAL A/C WORK

As you can see even with the additional work to complete the upgrade the price has STILL COME IN $40,000 LOWER then the least expensive bid brought by the previous board WHICH DIDN’T INCLUDE ALL THE ADDITIONAL WORK.

We then had to add a contingency of 20% as we still have additional costs of permits, possible engineer mechanical drawings if the city requires them. There is also the possibility of discovering mold based on some feedback from various owners. Since this was ignored for the last year, we may have to remediate the mold if it is discovered in places. We hope that there will be no surprises in which case we will put the additional money toward other parts of the overall common area.

Apologies for the lengthy email, but we wanted to give everyone the information that we gave those that attended last week’s meeting.

Again, our goals are to make these improvements efficiently and economically without sacrificing on aesthetics of quality. We will always keep the community informed via regular meetings and via the website www.7928westdrive.com for those that can’t attend.

We realize the dollar amount is larger than other assessments from recent years, but we are certain that the amount spent on this will increase everyone’s unit value as our hallways are embarrassing at best. Buyers and tenants may find your unit attractive but are put off by the common areas in this building. Furthermore, we can’t continue to take out loans to make these improvements as it wouldn’t be beneficial to the financial health of the building. We urge anyone that can pay the entire amount in one payment please do so. This will help us in getting started sooner.

We hope that answers many of questions you may all have.

Thank you and well done for making it to the end of this email!

Yasmine Kotb on behalf of the Board of Directors at the Islander Club Association