LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

When I was travel editor of the Sun Sentinel (1989-2008), I wrote about the then-disputed Hyde Park Market site, now home to Icon Las Olas. I suggested that because Fort Lauderdale had no public gathering spot other than the beach, it would be the perfect place for one.

I had just returned from Mexico. In every city and town, there were plazas where people strolled under shade trees, ate food from vendors, chatted on benches and listened to music from bandstands. The empty lot on Las Olas, I wrote, could be planted with trees, set with chess tables, dotted with food stalls and furnished with a bandstand for concerts celebrating South Florida’s rich ethnic diversity. Its strategic location would make it an ideal meeting place.

That didn’t happen. Instead, Icon Las Olas gave the city one more high-rise, and its riverfront restaurant now blasts music so loudly that neighboring residents can’t sit on their balconies.

In nearby Flagler Village sits One Stop Shop, a parcel with great potential in the city’s most vibrant neighborhood. Its banyans and oaks are treasures most cities would kill for; to destroy them would not only be criminal, but stupid. Turning the place into an entertainment complex would also be wrong. The city has many music venues but not one casually festive gathering place where young and old, families and singles, tourists and locals can relax, mingle, eat and experience a sense of community on a daily basis.

An entertainment complex is exclusive, charging admission and appealing to a specific demographic. An urban park is free and open to all. With intelligent planning, One Stop Shop could be the lively plaza I once envisioned for Las Olas. It would give Fort Lauderdale what it has long needed and something no other city in the region has. It would be a gift to residents and a model for planners around the country.

Thomas Swick, Fort Lauderdale