Dan Rogers (left) and Curt Hunt use a table saw to rip a 4 X 4 down to the size
they need for repairs to the south side of the Sandoway House.
Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star
By Jane Smith
Luck finally returned to the Sandoway House Nature Center.
Delray Beach allowed it to reopen Jan. 27 after forcing it to close for nearly five weeks to make needed repairs. The city’s building inspector had red-tagged the nature center on Dec. 26, shortly after a silver Ford F150 backed into it and caused about $25,000 damage.
“Tragic for us is that it came at the busiest time for us,” said Ann Heilakka, co-president of the Sandoway House board. “Kids were home from school, the season had just started.”
An Ontario, Canada, resident told police she pressed the gas pedal instead of the brake when backing into a parking space, according to the police report. The pickup jumped over the parking block and struck the south side of the Sandoway House, where there is a hexagonal tank holding tropical fish and coral.
The pickup hit a tree with its right front before hitting the house, the police report indicates. The report lists $3,000 damage to the pickup.
“I thought it was a bomb. There was dust everywhere,” said Val Fine, weekend manager, who was in the room at 10:20 a.m. He crouched down to protect a young boy standing next to him.
The room had glass shelves that shattered when hit, Fine said. “The glass went flying. No people or animals were injured,” he said.
The lath and plaster construction of the building acted like a stretch fabric, he said. He thinks the damage would be higher if the historic building were constructed with different materials. “The hex tank with 1 ton of water helped absorb the shock from the truck,” he said.
At the time of the wreck, the nature center had about 60 people inside and on its grounds. “Half ran screaming, the other half wanted to stay for the shark feeding,” Fine said. The sharks are fed outside in a pool on the north side of the building. The public shark feeding did take place that morning after Christmas.
Because the building was red-tagged, Sandoway House had to get permission to allow its staff to enter to feed the animals and do paperwork. Volunteers and visitors were not allowed.
Fine worried about losing the nature center’s volunteers to other programs.
The nature center has a complicated ownership structure. Palm Beach County owns the property, which it bought in 1995 for $620,000. The county leases it to Delray Beach. The city then subleases the property to the Friends of Sandoway House for $1 a year.
That’s why the city fronted the money to pay Brang Construction Inc. of Boca Raton to do the repairs, which cost $24,970, according to a city purchase order.
The city will seek reimbursement from the pickup driver’s insurance company, Intact Insurance Co.
The driver was not cited because the wreck happened in a parking lot. A 5-year-old girl and 3-year-old boy, relatives of the driver, also were in the extended-cab pickup, according to the police report.
The organization lost about $9,000 in revenue during the weeks the nature center was closed. That figure includes $900 in canceled classes and nearly $8,000 in admission fees, based on figures from the past three years.
The Sandoway House board will do extra fundraisers to make up the lost income, Heilakka said. “Putting Around has volunteered to do a fundraiser for us,” she said. “On Earth Day, we always do something. But this year, we will have a 5K race. That’s new for us.”
Initially the Sandoway House staff and board members thought the construction would take place in two stages. The first part would be for structural repairs needed to make the building safe, which would require it to be closed, and the second to allow reconstruction to continue. But Brang Construction was able to do all the work in one phase.
“We lucked out,” said Danica Sanborn, executive director of the Sandoway House.
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