Pier 66 Hotel to receive overhaul

Lauderdale OKs development deal

Fort Lauderdale has endorsed a developer’s plans to renovate the Pier 66 Hotel, one of South Florida’s iconic buildings.

The plans call for possibly adding hundreds of residences, as well as unifying the Pier 66 property with The Sails Marina, its Southeast 17th Street neighbor.

City commissioners approved a development agreement late Tuesday with Orlando-based Tavistock Development Co.

The renovation plans for Pier 66 don’t need to be turned in until January 2019, but Tavistock senior director Jessi Blakley said the company will work ahead of schedule to begin the work on the property.

Hurricane Irma last year damaged the hotel, which for decades has stood prominently with its space-age architecture and tower crowned with spires. After the hotel is restored, Tavistock will ask to designate the hotel as historical. Blakley said the company “felt encouraged” by the city commissioners’ approval. “We’re excited to move the process along,” Blakley said.

The city and Tavistock had worked to revise the details of

the agreement since commission members asked city staff to look into it last month. The revisions include:

— Limiting the number of residences it can ask the city for from 800 to 575.

— Setting a Jan. 3, 2019, date when Tavistock will turn in its first site plans for renovating the Pier 66 Hotel and building a marina promenade.

— Getting rid of language about the plans for commercial space and a community development district.

Interim City Attorney Alain Boileau explained the changes to the commission during Tuesday’s meeting. He worked with the developer’s lobbyist and lawyer Stephanie Toothaker up until Monday, revising “areas we thought we needed clarity and identify those things you would be agreeing to,” he told the commission.

During the back-andforth changes made to the document, Tavistock took out two main sections: one that proposed 15,000 square feet of commercial space, which could be leased as office or retail space, as well as a suggestion to establish a community development district, which uses funding from developers to build public projects.

While Blakley said the district isn’t off the table, it’s something the company will likely bring up with the city during further discussions.

Boileau repeated during the meeting that the developer still will need to go back to the city with site plans before anything is built.

Tavistock also will need to ask the city for the ability to build residences, even though it agreed to pay about $1.4 million to reserve 575 residential units, which is about a quarter less than the 750 units outlined in the original agreement.

In approving the agreement, the city is recognizing Pier 66 and The Sails, which Tavistock both owns, as one, despite being separated by Southeast 17th Street.

Tavistock bought the storied hotel and marina in late 2016 for $165 million and the neighboring Sails Marina the following year. Tavistock is now calling that marina Pier South. The combined properties span about 32 acres, including 7 acres that entail the marinas.

The new agreement is 15 years long, five years less than the first proposal. Because the project’s scope is large it needs to be “a longterm project,” Blakley said.

Fort Lauderdale’s mayor was the only dissenting vote for the Pier 66 project during Tuesday night’s City Commission meeting after saying he didn’t read the revised agreement from the developer. The commission, including Mayor Dean Trantalis, was emailed the final development agreement at 7 p.m. the night before the meeting.

“I vote no because I just got the agreement last night and these folks didn’t see the agreement,” Trantalis said, motioning to residents in the audience. “I think we got short-changed.”

Resident Mary Fertig had asked the commission to hold off on voting for the agreement, because it was long-lasting and the public didn’t have enough time to read it.

Fertig got a version of the revised agreement on Saturday because she’s a member of Lauderdale Tomorrow, a resident group the developer has reached out to. She said she couldn’t find the final version on the city’s website before Tuesday’s meeting.