New wave of high-rises to alter Fort Lauderdale’s skyline again
Lounging on a plastic chair outside the rental apartments she manages, Nancy DeCrevel, a cigarette dangling between her fingers, dragged out the bad news to her neighbor.
Their one-story apartment complex in Flagler Village soon would be razed for high-priced lofts as the march of urban redevelopment reaches their downtown neighborhood. Soon, development in the heart of this city will add 5,681 new condos or apartments at prices up to $5 million, adding an estimated 9,600 residents.
"How did you let that happen?" tenant Sam Thompson asked.
There was nothing she could do, she answered.
"I can't believe they're putting condos up in the middle of the 'hood," Thompson added. "I don't understand how it even went through. You have to think about the people who have been here years and years."
The city is only now feeling the impact of a first growth spurt as buyers settle in to more than a dozen high-rises erected in the past five years.
But a second wave of development -- $1.3 billion in land purchases and construction -- soon will overtake downtown and redefine the skyline once more.
Bulging between thick rubber bands in city planning offices are 39 development projects that would:
Enclose 4.1 billion square feet of living, retail or office space -- the equivalent of seven Broward County Convention Centers.
Introduce at least 212 new students into the public schools, two of which are "critically overcrowded," according to school district letters to the developers.
Add 10,500 parking spaces for a legion of cars, with no significant improvements to the roads.
Stack the new construction end on end, and the towers would stretch a mile high.
"This is the first new neighborhood to be built in 30 years," said Charlie Ladd, a Fort Lauderdale developer.
Many of the projects have already been approved, barely noticed by the public, and welcomed by city leaders eager to see an urban renaissance.
The city's old plans for downtown never envisioned so much residential development. But now, in an effort to keep the building boom alive, the city has opened the downtown to more high-rise homes.
The city can't keep up with the demand. After city commissioners gave permission to build 3,000 residential units a year and a half ago, developers flooded City Hall with plans claiming them all, plus another 915.
Permission for an additional 8,000 apartments or homes could be allotted in the near future, but even those may not last long, officials say.
Conditions have been set for the skyline to spread dramatically in the next five years, with towers where previously, homes, offices and warehouses rarely reached two stories.
Twenty-one new ventures, including 2,812 condos or apartments, will pack the small area of Flagler Village, a crumbling neighborhood north of Broward Boulevard and west of Federal Highway. Many cluster on the same streets, creating sections of high-priced lofts and condos.
The old scrappy neighborhood of Flagler Heights has already been renamed "Flagler Village," a hip area that has been advertised with modern lofts to satisfy young, urban professionals.
Developer interest has also broken past the Florida East Coast Railway tracks into northwest Fort Lauderdale, where five undertakings are planned.
Surrounding the future site of Tango Village townhouses on Northwest 14th Avenue, the housing is some of the county's cheapest. Residents there want the neighborhood to look better, but they worry it will come at too high a price.
Connie Henderson, 46, lives near the Tango Village site and uses her disability check to pay $101 a week for rent. She moved there because she couldn't afford the taxes on a home near Plantation.
"If they come through here, I feel they should find us a place where we could go," Henderson said. "They could choose us a spot."
City planners have heard the criticism, but they say steering dense development into the city center will help Fort Lauderdale evolve into a metropolitan hub.
The idea, they say, is to push dense development into downtown and ultimately preserve outlying neighborhoods.
"We're in a fortunate position in that Fort Lauderdale is a very desirable place. And South Florida is, too," said Marc LaFerrier, planning director for the city. " The developers will go and try to find places to accommodate that growth. It's better to put it in the downtown than in your neighborhood."
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