A grand honor

New city center wins livability award

The city of Pembroke Pines introduced its new City Center in April — a project over a decade in the making. Now, the Charles F. Dodge City Center has helped its city and mayor win an award.

Alongwith four other recipients, Mayor Frank Ortis and the city of Pembroke Pines were awarded the Outstanding Achievement Large City 2017 City Livability Award — that achievement being the Charles F. Dodge City Center.

The awardwas presented to Ortis on June 24 at the U.S. Conference of Mayor's 85th annual meeting in Miami Beach.

Theaward “recognizesmayoral leadership in developing and implementing programs that improve the quality of life in America's cities, focusing on leadership, creativity, and innovation demonstrated by the mayors.” The award winners were selected by former mayors and there were over 150 applicants.

In addition to its city hall and commission chambers, the city center also houses a concert hall and art gallery. A downtown area is also currently under development and will include restaurants and a shopping center.

“It took more than a decade of community visioning and planning, and a lot of dedication and perseverance, but we achieved our goal of creating a phenomenal City Center Cultural Complex for all to be proud of,” Ortis said. “We are very honored to received recognition for this project.”

Pembroke Pines was the only city within Broward County to earn an outstanding achievement award— which is sponsored by the Conference ofMayors andWasteManagement Inc. and has been presented for 38 years. There are two award levels for the outstanding achievement category, each with five winners: cities with populations of 100,000 or more and populations of 100,000 or less.

In Florida, for populations of 100,000 or more, Port Saint Lucie also placed for a race relations forum the city held. As far as populations of 100,000 or less, Doral was the only city in Florida to place, recognized for its fitness initiative.

ebloch@sun-sentinel.com