Miami real estate developer David Lombardi was at a meeting of art-insurance executives in 2006 when they conjured up a nightmare scenario: What if a freak hurricane rolled into South Florida during Art Basel and washed away millions of dollars worth of paintings and sculptures?

Three years later, Lombardi is walking through Museo Vault, the 86,000-square-foot bunker he built to stave off an art apocalypse.

From the inside, the five-story structure at 346 NW 29th St. looks a bit like a self-storage facility for the paranoid: It’s designed to resist a Category 5 hurricane, has backup generators, sector-by-sector temperature controls, a biometric security system and camera domes studding the ceilings.

But the $10 million building is more than just a massive safety-deposit box. The building also has private showing rooms, two ground-floor galleries and an art-restoration center.

On a recent weekday, Lombardi, 43, watched as workers loaded crates — intricate enough to qualify as art in their own right — on vans destined for one of the 19 satellite fairs around town.

Business has been slow since Museo Vault launched last year, Lombardi admitted. But as hundreds of galleries have descended on the city to participate in Art Basel, many didn’t want to incur the extra cost of sending people to Miami to help with transportation and installation.

And that has paid off for Museo Vault, Lombardi said.

“This has been a tough year for everybody,” Lombardi said. “So they were thrilled to know that we were here.”

Lombardi has been an integral part of the Miami art scene for the better part of a decade. Since 2000, his group — Lombardi Properties — has been buying land in the once downtrodden manufacturing area now known as the Wynwood arts district. He owns about 40 pieces of property in the area, including the lot where Museo Vault sits. It’s surrounded by clothing wholesalers, auto shops and the Enida Hartner elementary school.

PERFECT FIT

Initially, Lombardi wore his developer hat when he planned Museo Vault.

“We’re landlords and our dream situation was to fill the place up and collect rent,” he said. But that hasn’t happened. The building is carved up into storage units measuring 50 to 400 square feet, and rent runs $2 to $3 per foot. So far, about 15 percent of the space is rented out, he said. The break-even point is closer to 50 percent occupancy.

That has made the company more reliant on providing ancillary services, such as installation and shipping.

“We quickly realized it was important that our service side was up to the highest specifications,” Lombardi said. The company has eight employees, most of them museum-trained, and at least one poached from New York City.

`ONE-STOP SHOP’

Martin “Marty” Margulies is an avid Miami art collector and has been using Lombardi’s services since Museo Vault opened. When Margulies needed a Joan Miró sculpture moved from from his gallery at 591 NW 27th Ave. to his home, he asked Museo Vault to do it. When a recent acquisition was damaged on its way from the United Kingdom to Miami, he called Museo Vault to repair it.

“He’s a one-stop shop,” Margulies said. “He does installation, shipping, packing. I think he has found the right formula.”

Museo Vault isn’t the only business banking on that formula. There are several art-service companies in South Florida and many storage companies have areas designated for fine arts and antiques.

Fortress, 1629 NE 1st Ave., has been providing museum-quality storage and related services for 26 years.

“Anybody can build a nice new storage building, but you have to staff it and have the reputation to go with it,” said Fortress Vice President Kim Jones. “Clients have to have peace of mind and a comfort level; and they find comfort in dealing with someone who has been around the block.”

While Jones concedes that activity has been slow, “business is good considering the state of the economy over the last 12 months,” she said. And she welcomed the competition from Museo Vault. “There is enough business to go around,” she said. “Everyone provides something different.”

MATTER OF TIME

If there is a weak spot in Lombardi’s strategy to become a dominant player in the industry, he concedes it’s simply the time it takes to build a reputation.

“Most of our competition has been around for 20 or 40 years — and we’ve been around one,” he said. “What that means is that we have to give unbelievable service.”