Ten years from now, the publicly owned Bahia Mar acreage at Fort Lauderdale beach will be unrecognizable, with apartment towers, a new hotel, restaurants, stores and marine space.
After years of controversy and debate, developers early Wednesday won approval for a complete remake of the land. Proposals to build more on the former Coast Guard station have divided the community for nearly a decade.
“There are good people on both sides of this issue,” Mayor Jack Seiler said before the first of two votes, at a hearing that spanned eight and a half hours and concluded at 3:30 a.m. “I think there’s a huge public purpose involved. Right now, there is no public use of the property. … You pull up and there’s a gate, and if you get back there, you can basically hang out on asphalt. I think we can make better use of this property.”
The plans call for seven high-rises with 651 rental apartments, one high-rise hotel with 256 rooms, one five-story grocery-parking-office building, an above-ground parking garage, a yachting amenities complex, a small building that serves as a parking garage entrance, a two-story restaurant, a strip of one- and two-story buildings that serve as a marina village with kiosks and outdoor eating and a 1,900-space underground, two-level parking garage. A public promenade will wrap around the peninsular property. The work is projected to be complete by 2028.
Voting in favor of the development plan were Commissioners Robert McKinzie, Bruce Roberts, Romney Rogers and Seiler. Voting against it was Commissioner Dean Trantalis.
Commissioners also had to vote on whether the changes mesh with the developer’s long-term lease of the land from the city. That vote split 3-2, with Rogers joining the dissent with Trantalis. Rogers said he felt he had no choice but to approve the development plan, because it met the code, but he didn’t think the proposal jibes with the lease, which says the property’s character should be that of a marina resort, not an apartment village.
Those who supported the new Bahia Mar emphasized that the completed project will be more open to the public than it is now, and fresh investment will be poured into it.
“Once you stop growing, you die,” said Doug Coolman, a retired planner. “Something needs to be done at Bahia Mar.”
Kobi Karp, a prominent Miami architect who designed the Bahia Mar remake, said the towers are elevated four stories over an “open aperture,” allowing visitors to see the yachts and waterway from many vantage points.
“You can have the experience of the water all the way around,” Karp said. “ … We are giving the land and its functions and its uses to the community.”
Most of the parking is hidden underground, in a sealed parking cavern that developer Jimmy Tate said is designed to prevent flooding but has a generator and pumps just in case.
The city will glean additional rent from the developer each year, based on a 4.25 percent take of gross revenues. The city auditor estimated that by the end of the 10-year construction and leasing period, the city would gain $2.1 million a year, to $3.7 million, plus an increase in property taxes. Rogers and Seiler said the figures were disappointing.
“This should be a much higher return to the city,” Seiler said.
Phil Purcell, CEO of the Marine Industries Association of South Florida, owners of the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show, which is staged at Bahia Mar, said he worked closely with the development team and was pleased with the results.
The 38.6-acre, peninsular property — 16 acres of which is dry land — juts into the Intracoastal Waterway at 801 Seabreeze Blvd., south of Las Olas Boulevard.
The approvals were the end of a long road for developer Tate and partners Robert Christoph, Sergio Rok, and Rialto Capital Management.
The city in February 2016 rejected Tate’s plans for two 39-story towers. A revised plan with two 29-story towers was withdrawn by Tate in June 2016. The prior owner, LXR Luxury Resorts, a Blackstone company, also had a redevelopment vision, and spent several years winning city approval in 2011 for a project it didn’t build.
Some proponents of a redeveloped Bahia Mar pointed with disdain to the years of failed efforts.
Abby Laughlin, who called herself a “progressive Fort Lauderdalian” and beach resident, told commissioners loudly that “no is not an answer! No is not a plan, or a solution!”
“Do we want to be best in class, or do we want to be second rate?” she asked.
Critics cited concerns about too much traffic, failing water-sewer infrastructure, a wish for more public access to the site, not enough financial return to the city, and a feeling that allowing the choice public land to be used for rental apartments would be like giving it away. Lawyers and some activists argued that Tate’s lease with the city doesn’t allow him to overwhelm the property with housing towers. A few mentioned the coming city elections, where all five seats are in play, and suggested commissioners allow their successors to make the weighty decision.
“Gentlemen, what is your rush?” asked Joanne Robinson, president of Harbor Inlet’s neighborhood association, which opposed the development as “irresponsible.”
Robinson said traffic already is “untenable” and is “about to become no less than horrific.”
James Morlock, a real estate broker who lives near the Bahia Mar, submitted what he said were names of nearly 3,000 people who signed an online petition opposing the project. Many of the petitioners were from outside the city.
“It’s terrible. The king has no clothes here,” Morlock said. “The hotel is an afterthought.”
In a memo issued Tuesday before the meeting began, City Attorney Cynthia Everett said the city could justify approving the development, under the lease terms and case law. The lease requires Tate to conduct “a legitimate business,” she said, and multi-family residential could meet that requirement.
She also reminded commissioners of a May legal opinion from her office, which advised that the lease requires development that provides “the greatest volume of business.”
She said commissioners had to apply a “commercially reasonable” standard, and if they were to deny the developer’s request, they’d have to state a reason that meets that standard, such as asserting that development team lacks financial stability or would build a substandard project.
Commissioners were not allowed to “unreasonably withhold” permission, either.
Because the city’s water-sewer pipes are aging, some residents asked if the growth could be accommodated. The ages of the water-sewer pipes at the property are unknown, but developer attorney Robert Lochrie said they’ll all be replaced because of that information gap. Deputy public works director Alan Dodd said pipes leading from the property to utilities plants are at low risk of failure and can service the new Bahia Mar.