Does it have the gravitas to be a city gateway?

There’s a new plan on the table for the idled retail wasteland that is the former Searstown in Fort Lauderdale.

The project, called 901 North and submitted by Aimco, a real estate investment firm in Denver, is a replacement for one submitted by RK Centers of Miami, which originally planned to break ground this year but sold the site instead.

Now Aimco has served up an idea that its application calls “a residential choice and lifestyle that does not currently exist,” according to a company filing with the city’s Development Review Committee.

The project, according to the filing, “takes the current unfriendly pedestrian environment and creates an urban neighborhood, with residential, retail, and restaurant uses, along with expansive greenspace for the residents of Fort Lauderdale to enjoy.”

But it falls short of the expectations of City Commissioner Steve Glassman, who said last week that he wants to see the project convey more of a gateway effect to the city.

Meanwhile, Mayor Dean Trantalis is worried about yet another elevation in traffic levels in a city that is still amid a building boom, which is a concern echoed by the leader of a local neighborhood association.

Once a crown jewel

Sears Roebuck and Co. opened its landmark 60,000-square-foot Fort Lauderdale store and auto repair shop in 1955 at the busy intersection of Sunrise Boulevard and Federal Highway.

Dubbed Searstown, the complex was once hailed as a pioneering ”one-stop shopping” area.

As the South Florida Sun Sentinel recalled three years ago, it also boasted a new Piggly Wiggly supermarket, Chat-and-Nibble Sandwich Shop, Pribbles Jewelry, Monty’s 5 and 10 and Broward Drug and Surgical Supply. It also included a beauty salon, barber shop, card shop, gift shop, bakery and optometrist. The expansive parking lot could host 600 cars.

But Sears, its car repair shop and a clutch of independent businesses closed last year to make way for a sweeping redevelopment plan by the Miami real estate firm RK Centers.

 

Under that plan, 954 condos and apartments were to be spread among four towers, with more than 100,000 square feet reserved for shops, offices and restaurants. A fifth tower was to house  a 15-story, 192-room hotel.

RK Centers, however, changed course and opted to sell the site. And now, the city is weighing a new project in lieu of a groundbreaking that was originally targeted for mid-2023.

The elements of the Aimco version would include:

• Three towers: 30 stories (2) 21 stories (1).
• Apartments: 797 units
• A parking podium that connects towers, contains offices, and is topped by a deck with 3 pools and a gym
• Hotel: 188 rooms with 1,977 parking spaces.
• Retail: 70,693 square feet.
• Restaurants: 10,000 square feet

“901 North provides interconnectivity with other developments in the evolving near-downtown neighborhood,” the Aimco filing adds. ”Part of 901 North’s interconnectivity can be found in the urban park across the site, which connects the famous Mockingbird Trail and Holiday Park. 901 North creates a cohesive environment with a strong neighborhood feel for its neighbors to the North, South, East and West.”

Aimco declined in an email to answer questions about the project. Its attorney, Fort Lauderdale land-use lawyer Courtney Crush, was unavailable for comment.

The site is technically known among city planners and developers as “Near Downtown,” just above the formal downtown area that has undergone a building boom of high- and mid-rise apartment buildings, hotels, and retail businesses and restaurants before and after COVID-19.

But the commissioner whose district is home to Searstown believes the design falls short of the impact it should bring to the neighborhood as a gateway to the city. Motorists traveling east on Sunrise get their first glimpse of the center as they cross the Florida East Coast Railway tracks.

Short on gravitas?

“I do not think the new design is as spectacular as the original design,” said City Commissioner Steve Glassman, who represents District 2.  “The original design had a much more gateway (effect) to it. It had much more of an homage to the mid-century architecture of the Sears site.”

“This to me is a little too suburban Atlanta,” he added,  “and I’m disappointed because it almost replicates the FAT Village project just two blocks away. I’m trying to work with the developer to see if there’s something we can do.”

He said that if the review committee approves it he’d call for a review by the city commission.

But a list of “12 principles” outlined by the developer in the application alludes to an intent to create a gateway effect while creating a pedestrian friendly, green “transparent” neighborhood.

“901 North is designed to redevelop the current commercial property into a lush interconnected community,” the developer says in its first principle. ”901 North enhances the urban vitality of Near Downtown area by offering a neighborhood feel with a pedestrian-friendly lifestyle”.

It also seeks to “strengthen areas of varied neighborhood character and distinct identify.”

Between the 797 residential units and the restaurants, retail and open spaces, “901 North provides more variety and choice in the Near Downtown area.”

The most intense development would be focused “in a compact core,” the application says in its fourth principle. “901 North places the towers on the edge of Sunrise Boulevard and gradually scaling down into surrounding neighborhoods, like Flagler Village.”

Traffic reservations

Still, Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis and the Flagler Village Civic Association are wary that another dense mixed-use project would bring more people and traffic to one of the city’s busiest thoroughfares.

As development has exploded in Flagler Village and the central business district to the south of Searstown, bringing thousands more residents and a surge of  businesses to the area, questions are growing about how people will move around.

“The city is not developing the infrastructure needed to accommodate thousands and thousands of more people and cars,” said Leann Barber, president of the Flagler Village Civic Association. “They are taking a very laissez faire attitude. We’ve reached a tipping point.”

Barber is not convinced the plan will produce a fluid movement of pedestrians to and from the development.

“I guess my view of this is it’s a real missed opportunity,” she said after attending a meeting on the project Thursday. “It’s a huge project and it could really help (create) the kind of pedestrian city that we would like to see. But they’re creating a self-contained community and also what they would consider to be a vehicle destination.

“Unfortunately that’s not the vision for a cohesive city where you have a matrix, a mesh of residents and businesses inter-operating with each other,” Barber added. “They are more a self contained city within a city.”

Demand for apartments in the downtown and surrounding area remains high, according to figures presented recently to the Downtown Development Authority by the real estate services firm Northmarq.

The DDA, which has been cheering on development and promoting the city as a tourism Mecca from Las Olas Boulevard north to Flagler Village, declined comment on the Searstown project.

Trantalis, who opposed the RK Centers plan, said he hasn’t seen the latest design. But he told the South Florida Sun Sentinel last week that the prospect of more traffic concerns him.

“We have to try to find ways to mitigate traffic,” he said.

“Whatever it is that’s being built there, we have to ensure it’s going to add to the urban experience and not take away from what we’ve come to enjoy these many years,” the mayor added.

Mixed reviews for big curve

He was also not impressed with the latest effort by the Florida Department of Transportation to speed up traffic by widening the big curve that funnels traffic to and from the point where East Sunrise Boulevard merges with U.S. 1.

“By adding an additional lane they didn’t really do anything that is going to alleviate the amount of traffic,” Trantalis said. “The original traffic count that was estimated from the first 9project) go-around was 11,000 car trips a day. You can make that road eight lanes wide and you still are not going to be able to accommodate all of that traffic.”

Glassman, however, was more generous in his appraisal.

“I have traveled very many times since it’s been reopened,” he said. ”FDOT has done a good job in consultation with our transportation and mobility department.”

Traffic is flowing better because of the widening project, he said. “I believe that has made a significant improvement.”