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Miami Herald, The (FL)
January 31, 1988

4 MORE OCEAN DRIVE BUILDINGS RENOVATED
LYNN HORSLEY Herald Staff Writer

Four more properties on Ocean Drive have joined the ranks of the renovated.

The Congress and Waves hotels and two apartment buildings straddling the block between 10th and 11th streets were ramshackle, boarded-up structures when purchased in August for $3.4 million by New York veterinarian and developer Adrian Alexandru. Renovation wasn’t easy. The furnishings in the buildings were so bad that when the Salvation Army came to cart the stuff away, “they rejected it,” said Haim Einhorn, general manager for Alexandru’s Commercial Management Systems.

“When they saw the furniture, they were embarrassed,” he said.

This month, the company completed a $1 million facelift. Tourists and tenants, including several members of the New World Symphony, fill 90 percent of the 150 rooms in the four-building complex, now collectively called the Adrian Hotels.

The next tasks are putting a restaurant in the Waves building, 1060 Ocean Dr., and a cafe in the Congress lobby, 1036 Ocean Dr. Since May, Alexandru’s company has invested about $11 million in 15 South Beach properties, 10 along Ocean Drive and live on Washington Avenue across from the Convention Center.

Commercial Management Systems will begin a major renovation in the next two months at the Corsair, an 80-room hotel at 101 Ocean Dr., on the southern tip of the beach.

Why would Alexandru, who has animal clinics throughout New York City, invest in South Beach? “Doctor Alexandru started his investments in depressed areas in New York,” Einhorn said. “He is experienced in his vision there.”

Copyright (c) 1988 The Miami Herald