City has roof leak dispute with Waterfront Brewery

BY PRU SOWERS

KONK LIFE STAFF WRITER

Whodunnit?

There are conflicting reports of what is causing the roof to leak on a city-owned building currently housing the Waterfront Brewery at 201 William St. adjacent to the Key West harbor. The cost to fix the leaks, dripping into Sunset Watersports which also rents space from the city in the building, is almost $39,000.

City officials agreed to make an emergency appropriation to pay for the repair on Aug. 15 and they are not happy about it. But the tenant, Waterfront Brewery, is crying foul, accusing the city of incomplete repairs when it renovated the empty structure in 2012 in order to attract tenants to the dilapidated building.

Karen Olson, Key West Deputy Director of Port and Marine Services, sent a memo to city commissioners, sitting as the Caroline Street Corridor and Bahama Village Community Redevelopment Agency, on Aug 4 asking for an emergency procurement contract with K2 Summit LLC for $38,698 to fix the William Street building roof. The contract called for approximately 40 “penetrations” to be fixed. Although there had been reports of minor leaking in shops adjacent to the Brewery prior to that tenant moving in, “the leaking intensified during construction and after, causing damage to the tenant’s interior finishes, displays and merchandise,” Olson wrote in her report to the CRA.

Tropical Soup, the company that owns Waterfront Brewery and several other restaurants in Key West, made extensive renovations to the Brewery space over a two-year period, including installing mechanical equipment, railings, a deck and stage on the rooftop. Additional tears in the rubber membrane covering the roof were caused by Brewery contractors using the roof as a staging area for the renovation work, Olson said.

“With the installation of mechanical equipment, railings, rooftop deck and stage the contractor used improper methods to seal the penetrations. And the tears in the roof were patched using incompatible roofing materials to the existing Duro:Last roof. To further the roof damage guests to the rooftop deck began ‘flicking’ their cigarette butts burning holes in the roofing membrane,” Olson said, adding, “Staff has requested on numerous occasions that the Waterfront Brewery tenant make proper repairs to the roof to no avail.”

But a different story is told by Joe Walsh, managing member of the Waterfront Brewery. He said it was a “nonsensical decision” by the city to put more rubber membrane sealant on the roof when the problem, he claims, is concrete spalling – crumbling concrete caused by deterioration and water intrusion – that was not fixed by the city when it made repairs to the building five years ago. In addition, Walsh said, the perimeter of the roof is higher than the middle, causing water to pool in the center. His contractors installed a water drain underneath the Brewery roof deck during their renovations but did not extend the drain to service the adjacent tenants’ roof, he said.

“If you go in you’ll see quite clearly a crack in the concrete,” he said. “Why they [city officials] felt they should go up on a perfectly good roof, I don’t have an answer. What I do know is my contractors didn’t damage the roof,” Walsh said in a telephone interview with Konk Life.

While the city hasn’t publicly discussed suing Walsh’s company for the emergency roof repair, Walsh said he has grounds to countersue because the repair work done by K2 Summit effectively voided the roof warranty from his contractors. He is currently three years into a 10-year and five-year warranty on different parts of the roof over the Brewery space.

Walsh emphasized he has no plans to sue the city. But the repair work just completed by K2 Summit won’t eliminate the leaks, he predicted.

“What they did was they put a Band Aid on the problem,” Walsh said.

[livemarket market_name="KONK Life LiveMarket" limit=3 category=“” show_signup=0 show_more=0]