Miami-Based Hospitality Company Offering Free Temporary Shelter For Victims Of Surfside Condo Collapse

MIAMI (CBSMiami) – A Miami-based hospitality company is offering free temporary shelter for victims of the Surfside condo collapse.

It's last-minute touchups Monday for the Sextant Stays in Sunny Isles.

The seven-story building was undergoing design remodeling when the tragedy happened.

"We weren't totally ready to open for about a month," explained 31-year-old CEO Andreas King-Geovanis. "And Thursday we saw the news and we had a lot of the furniture in our warehouse already and we said we have to jump on this. We were in the position to have this entire building done fast. We have all the furniture."

As an employee worked on hanging art, CBS4's Lisa Petrillo toured a unit with the building's manager, who showed a three-bedroom apartment.

There are 17 two- and three-bedroom units. Each will provide fully-furnished rooms with hotel-like amenities, including kitchen supplies, personal care, toiletry items and more.

"There are going to be neighbors who recognize each other, which is really special. They're just going to be surrounded by other people who were in the south tower. It's a much better space for people to recover the entire month," King-Geovanis said.

Sextant Stays is offering a one-month free stay. King-Geovanis said everyone who can should step up to the plate.

"I think the foundation of any hospitality company is empathy. You have to be able to relate to people," he said. "And there are only a handful of people in the city that have the same resources the same bandwidth we do, so we really felt that we had a moral obligation to step up and not watch on the sidelines."

King-Geovanis said for the seven families who have already moved in this weekend, it's a delicate time.

"We are giving them a lot of space. A lot of them are still processing and holding onto hope that they're going to receive good news. Just a lot of shock, but still extremely grateful," he explained

If you are looking for housing and if you lived in the Champlain Towers, please email: andreas@sextantstays.com.