‘What were people thinking?’
Time to free up waterfront spot now occupied by jail, experts say
An ugly beige hulk of a building with eight stories and enough jail cells for 1,538 inmates squats on prime waterfront in downtown Fort Lauderdale.
Broward County’s maximumsecurity Main Jail opened in 1985, just a stone’s throw from the county courthouse. At the time, critics complained the land was too valuable for convicts and inmates.
Thirty-four years later, many still agree, saying prime waterfront land is no place for a jail.
“The riverfront is the gem of the city and a really great place,” said Paul Angelone, director of advisory services for the Urban Land Institute, a nonprofit research organization headquartered in Washington, D.C. “Downtown has changed so much over the years. New things have grown around that.”
Where the jail should go or what should go in its place didn’t even come up in the conversation.
No matter. The suggestion was met by cheers at a presentation by an expert panel on Oct. 18.
Fort Lauderdale Commissioner Steve Glassman, one of more than
140 people in the crowd, thinks it’s a fine idea.
“You really have to scratch your head and wonder why it’s there,” he said. “What were people thinking? It would be hard to imagine anyone saying, ‘Wow, what a great spot for a jail.’ Almost anything you can think of would be better than a jail. But I don’t know how realistic it is to pick it up and move it.”
Broward County official Alphonso Jefferson at first chuckled when asked what the county thought of the idea. Later, he said the county has no plans to relocate the jail.
But was it a costly mistake, one made before a building boom transformed downtown into a bustling urban core with more than 19,000 residences,1,200 hotel rooms and millions of office and commercial space already built, under construction or in the pipeline?
That all depends on who you talk to.
“You want the main jail near the courthouse,” Jefferson said. “It’s just a more efficient way of getting people [to court]. Right now, we believe the best solution is the jail stays where it is.”
Bobbi Ocean enjoys life in her downtown condo at the Las Olas River House, a 285-unit luxury condo that opened on the north side of the river 15 years ago.
The only downside: When she looks out her window, it’s hard to miss the hulking jail.
The Jungle Queen and other tour boats pass by several times a day, making light of the fact that folks plopped down millions for condos that overlook a maximum-security jail where inmates stay free of charge, Ocean said.
“They’ll say, ‘On this side of the river people get to live for free on our dime and across the river people
pay $2 million,” she said. “They just make a joke of it.”
It could be worse. The jail could have bars on the windows. But it would be better if it weren’t there at all, Ocean said.
No one disputes the land itself is valuable.
The building, at 555 Southeast First Ave., sits on 1.3 acres assessed at $5.4 million.
If a jail weren’t on it, the land would be worth up to $15 million, said Jack McCabe, a real estate analyst based in Deerfield Beach.
County Commissioner Tim Ryan, whose district includes the jail, questioned the wisdom and cost of moving the jail away from the courthouse.
“It would be a monumental expense to move a jail of that size,” Ryan said. He also worried about the security risk that comes with transporting accused criminals.
Before it opened 34 years ago, the jail was in a wing of the county courthouse.
Built at a cost of nearly $50 million, the jail is now
assessed at $10.7 million, according to the Broward County Property Appraiser’s Office.
Some local officials wondered what the Urban Land Institute experts were thinking when they proposed moving the jail.
The Fort Lauderdale Downtown Development Authority invited the landuse pros to town, billing them as objective experts with no skin in the game.
Moving the jail is a long shot, said Jenni Morejon, the DDA’s president and CEO. But the “lighting rod” topic at least has people talking about the best use of space in an evolving downtown.
If they could do it over again, today’s government officials would likely “never” put the jail where it is now, Glassman said. McCabe agreed. “Things have changed so much over the last 35 years,” McCabe said. “I don’t think they’d ever build a jail on prime waterfront land like that in the heart of downtown. It’s an ugly building. It sticks out like a sore thumb.”
Stan Eichelbaum, president of the Downtown Fort Lauderdale Civic Association, says he brought up the idea of moving the jail more than a decade ago.
“Everyone said, ‘You’re wasting your time,’” he said. “The reality is, was it crazy planning?”
The way he sees it, the answer is yes.
On this, most everyone agrees: If the county were to ever knock down the jail and put the land on the market, it would likely spark a bidding war.
But that’s pretty much a pie-in-the-sky dream, Glassman said.
“Bottom line, back in the ’80s, land was available and nothing was really happening,” he said. “But I would love to know how they zeroed in on that spot. What were they thinking?”
As for the inmates, the view is largely wasted on them. Many can’t see out the windows from their cells.