Next steps for Flagler Village: From vacant lots to more tall towers

Charlie Ladd, a longtime Fort Lauderdale real estate developer, leasing agent and contractor, recalls one of the biggest fears he harbored about Flagler Village more than two decades ago.

“I used to cringe at the thought of some girl walking her poodle and getting mugged by drug dealers,” he said. “I used to drive through there and see shady characters on every block.”

But these days, those thoughts are in the rearview mirror. Now he’s surprised if he sees one of those characters. And at the same time, he’s amazed that construction projects in the burgeoning sector north of Fort Lauderdale’s central business district are still gathering steam despite the pressures on developers of rising insurance, borrowing, labor and materials costs.

Flagler Village’s general boundaries are Broward Boulevard on the south, the Florida East Coast Railway on the west, Sunrise Boulevard on the north and Federal Highway on the east. The area’s population has exploded, according to a residential report by the Downtown Development Authority.

The total population last year stood at 24,429, an increase of 16.7% over 2021. Authorities are projecting a boost to 27,755 by 2027.  In the meantime, the average household income ballooned to $146,358 in 2022, a 20.2% year-over-year increase.

More than 3,500 residential units have been added within the last decade, the report added.

From the rooftop of the cosmopolitan 25-story Dalmar Hotel, which opened in 2019, visitors can gaze to the north and see clutches of intimate-looking rental communities along with high-rise apartment buildings that have risen over the last five or six years.

Some compare the village and its proposed reimagined arts district, FAT Village, to Miami’s prominent creative and culture-centric Wynwood section, which is packed with restaurants, galleries and retail.

“Wynwood gets all of the PR but there are thousands of people living in Flagler Village who have a pretty good lifestyle,” said Ladd, founder of Barron Real Estate.

A drive around the expansive neighborhood shows the beginnings of new works in progress: Vacant lots where low-rise businesses and residences once stood are awaiting new vertical projects.

Despite the upward trajectory of rental prices, demand remains high for new apartments in the Flagler Village area, according to financiers and developers doing business there.

“We sold five multi-family development sites in the last 12 months,” said Jaime Sturgis, CEO of Native Realty in Fort Lauderdale. “We’ve done a tremendous amount of leasing.”

Joe Hercenberg, senior managing director of capital markets for Walker & Dunlop, a commercial property finance firm, said Quantum, a mixed-use project with a Marriott Courtyard hotel along Federal Highway south of Searstown, “leased up pretty quickly. It’s in the 90s at this point.”

“The fact that they had 340 apartments that leased up as quickly as they did tells you people are running to get apartments in this area,” he said. “It’s a growing area.”

Dan Linblade, president of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Chamber of Commerce, said he hopes certain “missing components” will make their way to  Flagler Village as future projects unfold.

“We desperately need some good retail,” he said, as well as “attainable housing” for residents who cannot afford to live in many of the apartments that have been built to date.

In addition, there’s a need to resolve the question of how trains will cross the New River in the future so that both Brightline and a newly planned Broward Commuter Rail line can quickly transport more commuters and visitors to and from Fort Lauderdale.

LinBlade said the chamber agrees with the city that a tunnel beneath the waterway is a better idea than a bridge, which many believe would only serve to divide the city with an unwanted physical barrier.

Here is the status of five major Flagler Village projects on the drawing boards where the land has been cleared and plans are afoot for more apartment towers, retail space and offices:

FAT Village

• Address: 521 NW 1st Ave,
• Description:  Covering 5.6 acres, the project will contain 835,000-square-foot, office, retail and residential mixed-use urban village,  according to the Hines real estate development firm of Atlanta and Urban Street Development of Fort Lauderdale. It is located along North Andrews Avenue between Fifth  Street and Sistrunk Boulevard and is two blocks from the Brightline rail station.

The four-block enclave is designed as a “reimagined epicenter of the city’s art-centric district” and will contain 500 multifamily units in two residential towers; 80,000 square feet of curated food and beverage offerings, shopping, entertainment, and art studios and galleries; and 350,000 square feet of office space in two of Hines’ proprietary, heavy timber T3 (Timber, Transit, Technology) office buildings.

• Comments: The developers are aiming to start construction by October or November, according to Alan Hooper, of Urban Street Development.

“We’re pretty hopeful we will start construction between October and November,” Hopper said. “We’re working through our debt right now and demolition just ended. We’re going to start putting in sewer lines (at Andrews Avenue and Sistrunk Boulevard) and should get a license to close lane on the street in the next couple of weeks.”

“We are already fielding a lot of interest from restaurants,” he added. “We’re not going to have any problem with that.”

He sees migration by would-be permanent residents from elsewhere continuing in Fort Lauderdale.

“There is still a demand for residential in downtown Fort Lauderdale,” Hooper said. And he expects demand to be strong for the office space the developers intend to include in the FAT Village project,

627 North Federal

• Address: 627 N. Federal Highway
• Description: Grocery store (brand to be announced) with close to 100,000 square feet and an Italian restaurant soon to open. Slightly to the west, at Sixth Street and Third Avenue, is a city-approved project with two 30-story residential towers that will contain approximately 600 units with retail space at the ground level.
• Comments: “We fancy ourselves as the Mary Brickell Village of Flagler Village,” said Ladd, referring to Miami’s retail and restaurant enclave adjacent to that city’s financial district.

Ladd said he moved from Rio Vista on the south side of the New River to a neighborhood behind the Fresh Market to the east of Federal Highway.

“I chose to live here myself,” he said. “It’s more my lifestyle. Now I have two grocery stores within 300 feet of my home.” There are also 10 restaurants within the same distance.

317 North Federal

• Address: 317 N. Federal Highway.
• Description: Developer Merrimac Ventures intends to build two towers just north of the Dalmar Hotel on the sites of a former Greyhound bus station and a Sherwin Williams paint shop. A west tower would rise to 453 feet with 42 floors, offering 390 units and 561 parking spaces. The second tower to the east at 317 North Federal would rise to 496 feet with 45 floors, offering 326 units and 522 parking spaces.
• Comments: Dev Motwani, president and CEO of Merrimac Ventures, said the buildings will be constructed in separate phases.

“We’ve started construction on Phase One on the site of the former Greyhound bus station,” Motwani said. “We’re currently doing the foundation.”

“The second phase we plan to start next year,” he said. “The goal is to try to open them a year or so apart.”

The west tower will contain smaller studio and one-bedroom units.

The second phase — the east tower on the old Sherwin Williams site — “has a tremendous view east all the way to the ocean.” So the building “is going to have a little bit larger units.”

As for the target audience, Motwani pointed to the continuation of young professionals who gravitate toward Flagler Village.

His firm also sees a “healthy amount” of people relocating to the Fort Lauderdale area.

“The unemployment rate is very low here,” he said. Moreover, businesses are doing well and job opportunities are plentiful.

“We’re also seeing migration from the south of us as Miami gets more expensive,” he said.

DNA

• Address: 300 N. Andrews Ave.
• Description: Two towers will sit at 300 and 330 Andrews Avenue, slightly north of downtown’s Brightline station. Older buildings were demolished to make way for DNA’s twin towers.

DNA occupies a 2.7-acre prime development site that is planned as a mixed-use project encompassing twin multifamily towers of 612 residences. There will be approximately 700,000 leasable square feet with about 60,000 leasable square feet of prime experiential retail and commercial space.

Upon completion, DNA will rise to 500 feet and 44 stories.

• Comments: Gregory Freedman, co-founder of developer BH3 Management, suggested developers are waiting for lower costs before starting construction, although he said DNA is “ready to go” when that happens.

“ At the present moment there are things that need to come in,” he said. “There needs to be stabilization in the insurance market. There needs to be a clear line of sight with the Fed and interest rates.

“We believe our site on Andrews and Third is ‘Main and Main,’” Freedman added. “We love the market and we’re in this unique place. All of us are in this place where the demand is there on the renters side.”

Freedman said there will be different unit sizes in each tower, with smaller ones of up to 900 square feet in the south building and larger apartments of up to three bedrooms in the north building.

“We feel there is a shortage of supply of a larger unit in the market,” he said. That’s because there are fewer single-family homes for sale in the region and buyers looking for residences with bigger living spaces are having difficulty obtaining them.

Advantis Station at Flagler Village

• Address: 600 NE Third Ave.
• Description: The project will be a 252-unit tower with 12 stories on the northeast corner of Sistrunk Boulevard and Northeast Third Avenue. The 1.4-acre development is made up of eight parcels. Units, ranging in size from 600 square feet to 1,700 square feet, will rent for market rate. Walk-up apartments and live-work units are planned for the ground level, along with shops, bars and restaurants. An outdoor pool and amenity deck will be located on the seventh floor.
• Comments: The developer Prospect Real Estate Group of DeLand did not respond to an emailed request for comment. But the Sun Sentinel previously reported it was looking to open by mid-2024. Although dirt has been moved, it does not appear the company will make its original opening date.

The developers appear intent on ensuring the neighborhood is pedestrian-friendly, a goal that seems universal among city and private development planners. The 131-foot tower will be surrounded by shade trees and wide sidewalks, and an open-air pedestrian plaza is planned for the center of the tower, facing Peter Feldman Park across the street.