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Influence from a growing demographic Sunny Isles Beach, Fla., is affectionately recognized as Little Moscow. Some prefer to call it Little Minsk, Little Odessa or Little Kiev, depending on whom you ask. The nicknames spring from the large-scale immigration of post-Soviet citizens following the collapse of the USSR. The 1990s South Florida development boom coincided with an influx of wealthy former Soviets seeking to make investments in the newly accessible U.S. economy. Highrise condos like Winston Towers 300 proved attractive to affluent buyers whose taste for roskosh’, or luxury, fueled a series of property improvements – a trend that continues. This currently manifests as a loud call for porcelain surfaces inside and out. That is why the Winston Towers 300 Association enlisted Michael Potomkin’s PIF Construction Group in late 2021 to implement a portion of Danil Ilyayev’s restoration and rejuvenation design for the 23-floor condominium. The construction group was well known for its workmanship, so the association was confident the group had the expertise to resurface its 60,000-sq.-ft. pool deck over the building’s parking structure. Overhaul overdue The deck and pool needed work. After 50 years, the Winston Towers 300 amenities space had leaks that demanded repair and underlying surfaces that had to be restored and protected. Potomkin and the property owners understood that they needed a partner who could provide solutions for each. Sika was the natural choice. Headquartered in Baar, Switzerland, Sika has more than a century of construction materials solution innovations behind it. Its SikaQuick®-1000 was trusted to repair and flatten uneven surfaces, and a Sikalastic® Deckpro system was applied as a waterproofing and crack-isolation system. The performance of the products and service from the Sika team led PIF and the association to alter their plans by also using Sika materials to set the more than 1.25 acres of gauged porcelain tile panels to the deck. PIF set a variety of gauged porcelain tiles, panels and slabs for the $1.2 million redesign. “We were brought in by our RSB (refurbishment, sealing and bonding) team at Sika to put our tile-setting system together,” said Sika Technical Sales Manager Ken Johnson. “We first did an entire presentation for the building owner. This tile project was slated to go to another manufacturer. We came down and we put a complete system together. Because we were going over a Sika membrane, we were able to couple a system warranty together.” First, however, Johnson needed Potomkin’s buy-in for using SikaTile® materials.