Mayor touts Fort Lauderdale as ‘city on the move’ in State of the City speech

Pretty beach. Stunning skyline. Sparkling waterways.

The kind of city you never want to leave.

Residents got a chance to see Fort Lauderdale through the eyes of Mayor Dean Trantalis on Wednesday night at his annual “State of the City” speech.

The speech, delivered at The Parker playhouse, drew a crowd of nearly 400 people. Some cheered. A few booed. (But more on that later.)

Trantalis touted Fort Lauderdale’s growing reputation as a diverse and cosmopolitan city that is fast becoming one of the most desirable places in the nation to live, work and visit.

Fort Lauderdale earned a top spot by Livability.com as one of the nation’s best places to live, the mayor told the crowd.

“Miami, Tampa, West Palm Beach and Jacksonville didn’t even make the list,” he said from the stage. “We were ahead of Orlando and cities such as Charleston, South Carolina, and Asheville, North Carolina that have long been considered excellent choices.”

Fort Lauderdale has faced its share of great challenges in the past year, but tackled them all head-on, Trantalis said.

One unexpected adversity came in April in the form of a record-breaking rainstorm that flooded neighborhoods and shut down City Hall, forcing the city to lease temporary space until a new one can be built.

“The massive rainstorm in April and ensuing flooding tested us,” Trantalis said. “In the face of tragedy and suffering, a can-do attitude showed through. This indomitable spirit was there during the early rescue efforts, continued through the clean-up and lasted into the rebuilding stage.”

Trantalis described neighbor helping neighbor. Charities, agencies and even other cities lending assistance.

“We were inundated with 26 inches of rain in about five hours,” Trantalis said. “That’s 88 billion gallons of rain — more water than there is in 134,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. No community anywhere in the world is prepared to face something of that magnitude. However, Fort Lauderdale is resilient.”

Front lines of climate change

During the storm and the hours shortly afterward, the city responded to 10,000 calls for service, Trantalis said. Fort Lauderdale’s emergency response teams rescued or relocated more than 900 people. And, miraculously, no one died.

“The city manager and I knew that we had to quickly obtain disaster assistance so people could rebuild,” the mayor said. “He and I flew to Washington, D.C., and persuaded the Biden administration to expedite the president signing a disaster declaration. What normally would have taken weeks for a FEMA response, we achieved that day.”

Fort Lauderdale is on the front lines of climate change as a low-lying coastal community in the tropics, Trantalis noted.

“Experts expect sea levels will rise between 21 and 40 inches in less than a half-century,” he said. “Tides already flood some of the lowest parts of our city monthly. Areas once considered safe from flooding are increasingly vulnerable. That is why I think it is incumbent on us to redouble our commitment to build and maintain a strong and long-lasting infrastructure.”

City Manager Greg Chavarria has developed a plan that accelerates critical infrastructure work to make the city more resilient to flooding and the impacts of climate change.

“We’re calling it Fortify Lauderdale,” Trantalis said. “Over the next decade, Fortify Lauderdale will invest up to $500 million in stormwater infrastructure construction in 17 neighborhoods. This is more than twice the number we planned to do, and we will finish design and construction of these improvements in less than 10 years.”

That work will be in addition to extensive work already underway that has the city investing $200 million in eight neighborhoods to address tidal flooding and stormwater runoff, Trantalis said.

“We’re installing more tidal-control valves and drainage pipes, building new outfall connections and drainage structures, creating new catch basins, raising seawalls, rebuilding swales and constructing stormwater reserves,” he said.

Fort Lauderdale is also tackling another challenge that the mayor said was previously ignored by the city for far too long: Repairing and replacing its aging pipes and infrastructure systems.

“The largest project in the works is the new water treatment plant,” he said. “We expect to break ground within the month and be operational by late 2026.”

The mayor put the spotlight on other big wins for the city nearly 200,000 people call home.

Welcome home, Messi

One of those new residents, Trantalis noted, is soccer superstar Lionel Messi. The Inter Miami player has been drawing huge crowds to the city’s new DRV PNK Stadium and generating worldwide publicity for Fort Lauderdale, the mayor said.

“We are a city on the move — a growing and maturing city, a city that is taking its place on the world stage as a vibrant, diverse and exciting community,” Trantalis told the audience. “We have built upon our best qualities and our history to become a truly remarkable place to call home. All cities have challenges, but we are meeting them head on as we move boldly forward.”

Trantalis kept on rolling, ticking off other achievements Fort Lauderdale can be proud of. Among them:

• The city broke ground this summer on a new $140 million police headquarters that is expected to open in 2025.

• Fort Lauderdale’s renovated aquatic center opened at the beginning of the year with state-of-the-art competition pools and one of the tallest dive towers in the world.

• By the end of the year, the Florida Panthers will open a state-of-the-art sports facility in Holiday Park featuring two indoor ice rinks, one for the public and one for team practice. The Panthers are also underwriting a full-scale renovation of War Memorial Auditorium that should be completed by mid-2024. The Panthers will operate it in conjunction with Live Nation and will return the venue to its “glory days” with family-oriented shows and concerts.

• Plans are underway to build a major movie studio operation on top of an old landfill site.

In addition, Fort Lauderdale recently approved a public-private partnership that will answer demands for more pickleball courts.

“A group called My Park Initiative stepped forward and agreed to build a pickleball center in an underused section of Snyder Park,” Trantalis said. “When constructed, the site will have 42 courts as well as a restaurant and lakefront beach area.”

More cheers than boos

As soon as he mentioned the words pickleball and Snyder Park, loud boos erupted from a handful of residents in the crowd.

The loudest boos came from Ted Inserra, an activist who opposes the project.

“The whole pickleball thing is going to be a fad,” Inserra said the day after the mayor’s speech. “It’s not going to be a destination spot. And they’re going to have lights until midnight when they add those 42 courts. That park is normally dark after dusk, no lights whatsoever.”

Michael Albetta, president of the Lake Ridge Civic Association, heard the booing but he was one of the guys cheering throughout the mayor’s speech.

“I thought it was an eye opener,” Albetta said. “He talked about all the things we overcame in 2023. The mayor hit all the high points on what the city was doing to address its challenges. I thought he was bringing us into the 21st century. It’s a bright future. He got a lot of applause. And the boos, he handled with grace.”

Susannah Bryan can be reached at sbryan@sunsentinel.com . Follow me on X @Susannah_Bryan