209 replies to this topic

[prahaboheme]

maybe its just the wrong angle but that garage and midsize portion seems way too large and bulky. I'm not fond of the colors either. I do like the project anyway. A new market that is sure to take off.

[streetscaper]

looks great to me ..hopefully it gets approval tomorrow and breaks ground before the year's end

[Urban_Legend]

I like this project, and it's location. I can see other developments following this one, in a concentrated area, so it won't seem so isolated.

[Aessotariq]

Broward approves thousands of new residences in Lauderdale, Hollywood

By Scott Wyman
Staff writer
Posted March 16 2005

The eastward march of Broward County's development picked up speed on Tuesday as county commissioners agreed to allow 3,000 more residences to be built in downtown Fort Lauderdale. It also gave Hollywood the power to better use blighted parts of its city core for new housing.

Fort Lauderdale wanted the right to add 13,000 residential units downtown, but city officials could not overcome concern that roads, schools and utilities could not keep pace with such rapid growth. Still, the expansion agreed to by the county could result in 10 high-rise condos the size of downtown's current largest building, the 42-story Las Olas River House.

Hollywood, on the other hand, is expanding the area designated as its downtown so it can bring residential and commercial development to the Federal Highway and Dixie Highway corridors that so far have been left out of its revitalization. Hollywood's proposal does not increase its downtown density, but focuses where the remaining 4,400 units allowed under its current cap are built.

Tuesday's decisions will not result immediately in any construction in either city because the state Department of Community Affairs must approve both proposals, and then the county must conduct a second round of review. But officials said the decisions signal how development is shifting away from the western suburbs where open land is increasingly scarce to older coastal communities.

"Broward County is going from a sleepy, suburban community to the sixth largest urban area in the nation," County Mayor Kristin Jacobs said. "We are waking up to that fact and realizing we must figure out how to maintain our quality of life and build a sustainable community."

While some slow-growth advocates and environmental activists remain concerned about the effect of such plans, Fort Lauderdale officials complained that the county had set back efforts to expand affordable housing and mass transit. A dearth of additional housing units will drive up the price developers can seek and mean fewer people to sustain any type of downtown rail or trolley system.

"The people are coming and the question is how do we properly plan for growth," said Chris Wren of the Downtown Development Authority.

FORT LAUDERDALE

Fort Lauderdale wanted to raise the cap on housing from 8,000 units to 21,000 allowed between Sunrise Boulevard and the Tarpon River and between Federal Highway and Northwest Seventh Avenue. That would have meant as many as 26,000 additional residents.

Although major residential projects have been under way downtown for more than five years, city officials told the county that more are needed if the area is to become an urban center. The city has reached the maximum number of units allowed south of Broward Boulevard and has plans on the table to eat up those allowed in the downtown area north of Broward.

In an effort to win approval, city officials agreed to set aside 15 percent of the new units for affordable housing and pledged about $6 million in impact fees to address overcrowded schools. But they could not reconcile starkly different views about the impact of the extra growth.

County Commissioner John Rodstrom, who represents downtown Fort Lauderdale, joined neighborhood activists in charging that roads, sewer and water systems, parks and the electric supply are inadequate. Rodstrom persuaded his colleagues to limit the number of new units to 3,000 and to require the city to come back with better justification for more.

The city's traffic study said 13,000 additional units would more than double the traffic downtown even if some residents walked and others rode mass transit. Rodstrom said the city has not approved a needed switching station to bring more electricity downtown or a needed water tower to improve water pressure.

Rodstrom was particularly concerned about overdevelopment because another proposal that county commissioners will soon consider would allow the city to shift 20,000 more residential units downtown.

City commissioners and their planning staff promptly criticized the county decision.

They said utilities would be upgraded and that improvements in mass transit could only occur if more housing is built downtown. Currently, plans are on the drawing boards for a downtown light rail, a rail system along Interstate 595, an automated people-mover at the airport and seaport and public transit along the Florida East Coast Railroad tracks.

HOLLYWOOD

With the Hollywood project, the area designated as downtown would expand from 384 acres to 1,486 acres, encompassing most of the area south of Sheridan Street, east of Interstate 95, west of South 17th Avenue and north of Pembroke Road.

The expansion allows the city more flexibility in deciding which properties to develop. City officials would be able to focus a mix of housing, office and commercial development along major corridors served by mass transit.

Some residents had been concerned that the city planned to place all of the 4,400 remaining housing units in its primary downtown area around Young Circle, saying such a move would create a blighted outer Hollywood and an inner core of luxury housing.

City officials assured the county that was not the case. They pledged that half of the units would not be built in the core area.

City Commissioner Beam Furr said Hollywood planned to target the west side of Dixie Highway, the area south of Adams Street and corridors like Federal Highway. Furr said the city had to put the brakes on redeveloping those areas because of planning restrictions.

Link to article

[Urban_Legend]

The artist formerly known as Tivo, what's up with your screen name?

[Aessotariq]

Partners Begin $10M Infrastructure for Metropica
By Marita Thomas
Last updated: March 31, 2005 09:24am

SUNRISE, FL-Aventura-based K-Group Holdings begins infrastructure development of 26 acres of land for the $160-million, 65-acre Metropica mixed-use development planned here adjacent to Sawgrass Mills Mall. The infrastructure development cost is estimated at $10 million, according to Joseph Kavana, K-Group CEO.

Phase I will include 500,000 sf of office space in four six- to seven-story buildings, 363 residential condos in two eight-story structures, parking garages and a 62,000-sf “restaurant village.” The second phase of the master-planned project will add an estimated 2,000 more residential units and an open-air park at the center of the land will anchor all components of Metropica.

Codina Construction, an affiliate of Coral Gables-based Codina Group, is general contractor. Codina is a JV partner with K-Group in the Metropica project. Plans for the development were announced in the summer of 2002, won the approval of the City of Sunrise in January 2004 and groundbreaking was initially expected to take place about a year ago.

The site is at the northeast corner of Panther Parkway and Sunrise Boulevard. Kavana says it is the last strategically located parcel of undeveloped land in western Broward County.

Link to Article

[Urban_Legend]

It sounds like an urban development in the suburbs. Good news!

[bobliocatt]

That's exciting news to hear about Fort Lauderdale and Hollywood making plans to densify. Its also about time, Broward County started taking rail transit serious. I think, once rail is put in place, FTL will be able to build the desired number they originally stated. I'm looking forward to see what type of urban development proposals are announced, as a result of these changes.

[streetscaper]

Posted by FTLMAN @ SSC



By Scott Wyman
Staff writer
Posted April 5 2005

Hoping to keep a federal courthouse in Fort Lauderdale and relieve overcrowding in state courts, Broward County is touting a plan for a new judicial campus on the site of the current state court building downtown and on nearby land.

The proposal presented to Chief U.S. District Judge William Zloch and county commissioners during the past week calls for a high-rise state court to be built on the southwestern corner of Third Avenue and Southeast Sixth Street. The oldest part of the current state courthouse would then be demolished to make way for a new federal court center.

The county began looking for land for a joint federal-state judicial campus two months ago after Zloch suggested closing federal court operations in Broward and sending local cases to Miami and West Palm Beach. Zloch had long been frustrated in his efforts to replace the current federal courthouse in Fort Lauderdale.

"I think we've developed the most workable plan that has been considered in the past 15 years on construction of a new federal courthouse," County Administrator Roger Desjarlais said Monday. "We would be able to build what we need while assuming the least amount of risk possible because we own most of the land already."

The total project would cost at least $240 million, about $120 million for each courthouse. Desjarlais said the county has $50 million set aside for a new state court building and could borrow money to pay the other $70 million in its construction costs.

Zloch could not be reached for comment. Desjarlais and Fort Lauderdale attorney Bill Scherer, who has been active in negotiations between the county and federal court system, described Zloch as open to the idea, even though Desjarlais said Zloch would prefer locating the federal court on a larger parcel of land a block south of the state courthouse.

"I think this works," Scherer said. "You get a new state facility with the feds right there."

Desjarlais said he will ask county commissioners to pursue more detailed discussions with federal officials and talk to landowners about whether they are willing to sell their property. Commissioners have said they would condemn land for the project if necessary.

Under the county plan, the federal government would trade its current courthouse at Third Avenue and Broward Boulevard for the site of the current state courthouse. The county would then decide whether to sell the Broward Boulevard property to developers or use it as part of other plans it has to build a new county government center.

To create the judicial campus and meet federal security requirements, the county also would close Southeast Sixth Street. Desjarlais said it would be turned into a pedestrian mall.

The county has been looking to build a new family court building to ease overcrowding at the state courthouse but scrapped the last plans to do so two years ago. The main section of the courthouse was built in 1955 and is outgrowing its 1995 expansion.

Scott Wyman can be reached at swyman@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4511.

[Urban_Legend]

I hope Broward gets to keep its courthouse. I think it would be stupid to just have courts in West Palm and Miami. Also, this could be a great new building downtown.

[Urban_Legend]

Robotic parking garage approved for downtown Fort Lauderdale

Robotic parking -- like valet parking, but without the valet -- is coming to Fort Lauderdale.

A totally automated parking system that racks and stacks cars in less space than a conventional parking garage was approved Tuesday night for a condo project downtown, "The Exchange."

The mechanical parking structure is the first to be approved in the city, and if built, would be the only one like it in the state, according to parking industry representatives. Only two fully automated systems like the one approved Tuesday are built in the country, in Hoboken, N.J., and Washington, D.C., while scores of them are under consideration or getting approved, according to manufacturers.

"It's very, very cool," said developer Danny Bivens of Tarragon South Development Co.

Unlike many other loft projects in the Flagler Village area north of Broward Boulevard downtown, The Exchange won't be new construction but rather a transformation. An old 1930s telephone switching center, with concrete floors and giant concrete columns, exposed pipes and air ducts and 14-foot ceilings, will become a hip loft address. Its 87 units will sell for prices ranging from the low $300,000s to the $500,000s, Bivens said.

A seventh story of bungalows will be added to the pink, six-story building that currently stands empty, its windows sealed and painted over, at 115 NE Third Ave., on the southwest corner of Northeast Third Avenue and Northeast Second Street.

"This is probably one of the most interesting forms of recycling I've ever seen," Commissioner Dean Trantalis said before the project got unanimous approval Tuesday night.

Bivens, who had no parking requirement because of the project's downtown location, said he had talked to the city about leasing spaces in its City Hall garage next to his project, but that fell through.

At $30,000 a space, the 130-space robotic parking tower is about double the cost of a conventional parking garage, Bivens said.

The robotic parking system is a rarity in this country but popular in Europe, company representatives said.

"In Europe it's there simply because the older cities, they don't have any space to build on, and so they have to accommodate everything underground," said Ken Livingston at SpaceSaver Parking Systems in Chicago, the company Tarragon will use.

The way it works is, a driver pulls in and drives onto a parking tray. The machinery does the rest.

"You get out of your car," said Bivens. "It'll scan your car to make sure there's no dog in there or baby or husband."

The tray rises into the structure like an elevator and shifts the tray into an empty spot, returning with another empty tray.

"It slides them like an electronic Rubik's cube," said Bivens.

The sensor also measures the car.

"Hummers don't fit," Bivens said. "We don't want Hummers." When the resident is ready for the car, a handheld device can be scanned in the elevator on the way down. The car will be waiting.

The machinery "learns habits," said project architect John Paul Barranco of Architecture Design Studios.

For instance, if one driver always leaves at 6 a.m., that auto will be stored near the bottom for easy access.

With urban infill the rage in downtowns across the country, The Exchange is not the only project considering stacking cars on shelves stretching into the sky.

"There's a great deal of interest. We get calls every day," said Hal Reilly, senior sales engineer at Robotic Parking Systems, a Florida company.

Robotic, which built the Hoboken garage, and rival company SpaceSaver, responsible for the D.C. version, both say they have projects in the works all over the country, including South Florida, though they declined to give specifics about local projects.

Americans may not have gotten used to the idea of leaving their precious autos inside a machine, Reilly conceded, but he said they should.

"If you think about it, it's not like getting in an elevator, where your body is at risk. It's only your car."

[bobliocatt]

$30k for a parking space? I guess you really have to love your car to park it in one of these things.

[Aessotariq]

Posted on Wed, Apr. 20, 2005

FORT LAUDERDALE
County, court centers advance

Broward County commissioners and courthouse officials want to move into bigger, more modern buildings in downtown Fort Lauderdale.

BY BETH REINHARD
breinhard@herald.com

Broward County took steps Tuesday toward a new county government center and state courthouse, two mega million-dollar developments that would transform downtown Fort Lauderdale.

The County Commission chose national consulting firm HDR Inc. of Omaha to study potential costs and designs of a complex that could include government offices, housing, park space and shops. The county expects to spend $500,000 to $600,000 on the study.

Full article: Miami Herald

[Aessotariq]

Land use plan put in motion
High-rises proposed along North Federal
May 8, 2005
By Brittany Wallman, Staff Writer

FORT LAUDERDALE · Residential developers are moving in on another slice of the city previously not considered a home-building location: North Federal Highway.

That's what Vice Mayor Christine Teel told her City Commission colleagues at their meeting Tuesday, and they heeded her call for a master plan so the redevelopment of that area can be guided by the community.

The exact boundaries of the area that would be planned out have not been defined, but Teel said generally, the part of Federal Highway north of Sunrise Boulevard is ripe for redevelopment now. And for the first time, high-rise mixed-use projects are under consideration there by developers ...

Read more: Sun-Sentinel (for a limited time)

[Brickell]

A City Reborn Is Ready for Close-Up

# An international gathering will give a place once known as a magnet for rowdy spring-breakers a chance to show off its makeover.

By John-Thor Dahlburg, Times Staff Writer

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The raunchy seaside bar that local lore says pioneered an American institution, the wet T-shirt contest, is long gone, torn down for a five-star resort scheduled to open this year.

Likewise, the throngs of vacationing, beer-chugging collegians have passed into history, though memories of this South Florida locale as the mythic spring-break destination — a.k.a. "Fort Liquordale" — linger. It was a 1960 Hollywood movie that gave this place another alluring nickname that each March and April helped bring in armies of thirsty, hormone-engorged young adults: "Where the Boys Are."

For three days beginning today, thousands of people of a very different sort will visit this city, which is usually eclipsed by the cosmopolitan chic and glitz of Miami, its neighbor 22 miles to the south. The Organization of American States is holding its annual General Assembly here, providing Fort Lauderdale with an unaccustomed moment in the international spotlight and an opportunity to display its new face....

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...ack=1&cset=true

[Brickell]

Sawgrass Mills sets upscale expansion

The Colonnade at Sawgrass will feature luxury retailers and upscale restaurants. The project is expected to open by November.

BY ELAINE WALKER

ewalker@herald.com

Value shopping at Sawgrass Mills is about to enter a new realm: luxury retail.

The developers of the Sunrise outlet mall revealed a preliminary lineup of tenants for The Colonnade Outlets at Sawgrass, an expansion of the mall featuring upscale tenants in a stand-alone, open-air center. The opening is expected by the holiday season.

The Colonnade will feature Barneys New York, Salvatore Ferragamo, Coach, David Yurman, Crate & Barrel and Miss Sixty.

Also, relocating to the 110,000-square-foot project are several of the mall's existing premium outlets including Escada, St. John, Hugo Boss, Cole Haan, Max Mara and an expanded Neiman Marcus Last Call....

http://www.miami.com...ld/11859559.htm

[Urban_Legend]

That rendering looks nice. Even if it's in the middle of suburbia, and so anti-urban, I like Sawgrass.

[Aessotariq]

Lots of great things happening in Fort Lauderdale... here's a teaser skyline pic, part of one of many photo tours I've been compiling:

[mercator]

great pic, but enough teasing already, where's them photo threads?
I've been drewling all afternoon!

Edited by mercator, 13 June 2005 - 03:47 PM.

[Dale]

Anyone know what happened to 200 Brickell, a 14 story mixed-use building proposed by Stiles ? It was announced over a year ago.