Not sure if this is to be posted in the 'just in' section or the 'scams' section.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/01/23/2028805/holocaust-center-seeks-plan-to.html

BY EILEEN SOLER
SPECIAL TO THE MIAMI HERALD
Officials at The Holocaust Documentation and Education Center, at home in downtown Hollywood since 2007, want to strike a deal that could have the center operate virtually mortgage free.

The 30-year nonprofit center’s permanent home, an art deco building at 2031 Harrison St., was purchased in August 2004 from the Hollywood Community Redevelopment Agency for $1.2 million payable over 15 years. In the past, it had been housed at Florida International University and other Miami-Dade locations.

Now, after spending $3.5 million in renovations and repairs and facing $17,000 in mortgage payments per month, the center’s board is asking the CRA to retake ownership of the building then lease it back to the center for $1 a year for 99 years.

Citing continual, excessive structural problems at the 85-year old building and hard economic times that mirror a sharp decrease in public and private donations, board member Mara Giulianti said a new plan should be struck with the CRA.

“No one seemed to understand what deplorable condition the building was really in. We thought we were getting a three story building but now the entire second story has to be razed,” Giulianti said.

Rositta Kenigsberg, executive vice president of the center, said the place became a “money pit” which is why the CRA had decided twice to defer mortgage payments for a total of six years since the original agreement was made.

“Who would think we’d have to put $3.5 million into renovations when the money should have gone to building the museum? Someone else would have said who needs this, but we moved forward without realizing things were getting worse, not better,” Kenigsberg said.

It took three years of repairs to bring the building - formerly a fetish nightclub - to code at least on the third floor where offices are kept said Giulianti, who was Hollywood’s mayor for two decades until 2008.

New plumbing, electrical wiring, new floors, new windows and casings, an elevator and new framing were needed to open the second floor alone, which now includes a multipurpose room, video interview room and a library with 5,500 books and hundreds of videos, DVDs and periodicals.

The center’s other collections include videos, DVDs and paper manuscripts of 2,400 eyewitness testimonies to the atrocity that ended in 1945 with six million Jews and five million others exterminated.

Still, the center needs at least $350,000 more just to demolish the second story and open traveling exhibits in the first floor museum space - the center’s public focal point and reason for moving to Hollywood in the first place.

Giulianti said that meanwhile the center will continue its capital fund-raising campaign to build a $16 million permanent attraction.

Jorge Camejo, the CRA’s new executive director as of Jan. 3, said he wants to schedule a meeting to hear the details of the problem so that recommendations can be made.

“I think everyone wants the center to be located here but we have to be responsible public servants. I believe the CRA already granted several extensions and worked with them on other financial issues,” Camejo said.

The center was given a $50,000 grant to get the project started, and then received a $500,000 loan from the CRA to help with initial reconstruction. Later, the CRA made the loan a grant.