Land sale could spur booming downtown

Project at City Hall site could pave the way for Coral Springs

CORAL SPRINGS – Coral Springs has for years wanted to create a downtown destination —a place for living, dining out and shopping— and a new land deal could finally help pave the way.

A developer plans to buy the city’s former City Hall site to create a giant project across a combined 12 acres in the heart of the city.

The vision calls for hundreds of rental apartments, and retail buildings that could rise seven stories.

The city is expected to sign off on the $4.6 million land purchase of the old City Hall site on Wednesday. It’ll be sold to Amera Downtown Development.

The developer already is under contract to buy the last parcels of a shopping center just east of the former City Hall site, both at the northwest corner of Sample Road and University Drive.

“We’re extremely excited to start to see some development happening in the downtown areas,” which will be “the catalyst” for even more redevelopment, said City Manager Frank Babinec.

City officials have long had their sight on the four quadrants of University and Sample to create a bustling downtown.

On the southeast, a retail complex adjacent a county library and a charter school, was the first to be built. On the northeast, an empty piece of land is owned by Publix, and the city hopes they will eventually sell.

On the southwest, the 1970s-era, 10-story Coral Springs Financial Plaza is expected to be razed later this year to make way for Cornerstone at Downtown Coral Springs, consisting of two sevenbuildings, including hundreds of rental apartments with restaurants lining the ground floor.

This northwest section is the next to rise.

The parcel has a shopping plaza with only a few tenants left, including a kosher caterer. Amera Downtown Development President George Rahael said he owns most of it already, and the last pieces are under contract — contingent on the deal with the city for the old City Hall site going

through.

The old City Hall was bulldozed after a new, larger City Hallwas built across the street.

Rahael is the same developer who built “The Walk,” a restaurant and retail center on University Drive and the “One Charter Place” office building at the southeast part of Sample Road andUniversity Drive.

He said he envisions “a lifestyle center” as tall as six or seven stories with 300 to 350 rental apartments, office, retail and restaurant space in the northwest section.

By combining the two sites of the Old City land and the shopping center that fronts University Drive, “now it’s big enough to allowus to do something like that.”

Theagreement that could be approvedWednesday also calls for Coral Springs to make a “contribution” of $600,000 “for purposes of benefiting the public,” which could include water and sewer improvements for the project.

Rahael said after the approval, he will turn his “planners and architects loose” to create the plans that must be submitted to the city for approval. Construction could begin by the end of next year.

Tenants who are still left in the shopping plaza, formally known as Village Square, will be allowed to finish their lease, and then Amera will offer to relocate them to other properties.

He said the new project, which doesn’t have a name, will be inspired by the walkable Fort Lauderdale’s Flagler Village billed as urban living in a downtown atmosphere with creative tenants.

“We’ll try to emulate it here,” he said.