On Thursday evening, members of the Gardens on the Bay owners association gathered for an emergency meeting to discuss a harrowing reality: Everyone at the three-story, waterfront property at 6484 Indian Creek Dr. in Miami Beach is facing possible eviction.

Days earlier, owners at the 102-unit building had been served with a lawsuit that names more than 140 defendants, ordering them to respond within five days or potentially be removed from their homes. The eviction notices stem from claims of a failure to properly maintain and insure the 1954 building, which is due for recertification next year and is in need of at least $2 million in repairs, according to the landlord, an LLC controlled by Miami-based Millennium Management and its leader, healthcare magnate Abraham Shaulson. An alternative solution could require the residents to pay a large assessment — which some may be unable to afford. Several residents responded to the eviction lawsuit in handwritten court filings, pleading for mercy. “Why do you want to throw an old woman out of her home?” wrote Marta Alvarez, 92, a widow who has lived in the building for more than three decades. “Who will help me if I move to a strange place?”

Gardens on the Bay at 6484 Indian Creek Drive in Miami Beach is pictured Friday, June 16, 2023. The building’s owner is threatening to evict more than 100 people, saying they have failed to maintain it.

The building, a former motel known as Garden of Allah until 1984, is nestled between newly-renovated Brittany Bay Park and the sleek Shane Watersports Center. On a road replete with luxury condos, the nearly 70-year-old structure looks like a relic.

It operates much like a co-op, with the land owned by a company that leases it to an owners association under a long-term deal that expires in 2056. Each unit owner has a stake in the lease.

In its lawsuit, the landlord argues the individual unit owners are “tenants” under the lease agreement and are each responsible for maintaining the building, and therefore should all be evicted for breaching the lease.

The owners association, represented by condo law firm Becker & Poliakoff, disagrees.

The association — which receives maintenance fees from unit owners and pays the landlord $65,000 per year — says it, not the individual unit owners, is the tenant under the lease.

“Relying on this incomprehensible position, Owner has now threatened eviction proceedings against the unit owners within the Association,” the association said in a lawsuit filed in Miami-Dade Circuit Court in February, after Shaulson’s company sent an initial “notice of termination” to the unit owners.