Lauderdale postpones high-rise senior home vote

A vertical senior citizens’ home on the New River is nearing final approval in downtown Fort Lauderdale.

The tower, Riverwalk Residences of Las Olas, is the first of its kind proposed in the burgeoning downtown. Canadian developer Jean Francois Roy says it’s not “a nursing home,” but a luxury high-rise for older folks, including those who need assisted living or “memory care.”

The proposal is controversial, and city commissioners Wednesday postponed a vote to Sept. 19 because of Hurricane Irma’s approach.

Commissioner Dean Trantalis said residents at the WaterGarden condo next to the proposed tower have complained the building is too close to theirs, and it doesn’t have sufficient parking for residents and workers, among other things.

“They want it smaller,” Trantalis said.

The 43-story tower would replace a small office building at 333 N. New River Drive East, just east of the Third Avenue bridge, on the north side of the New River. The property is within walking distance to Las Olas Boulevard.

One owner in WaterGarden, Kurt Harrington, wrote to city commissioners Monday telling them that real estate value used to be determined by “location, location, location.” Now, he said, it’s “setbacks, setbacks, setbacks.”

He said the tower would be six feet away from WaterGarden’s property line.

Roy proposes 152 assisted living rooms, 57 memory care rooms, and 192 independent living units. He also proposes 1,618 square feet of retail/restaurant space.

South Florida’s senior population is expected to grow. Roy told the Sun Sentinel earlier this year that the high-rise would contain doctors’ offices, adult daycare and physical therapy services, plus luxuries like a rooftop bar, gourmet market, full-service spa and six hotel rooms for families of tenants.

Monthly rents would start in the low $4,000s and include food, transportation and activities, Roy said.

The project is expected to attract 1,250 car visits or departures a day, a traffic analysis found.

The project is expected to be built by 2019.

The developer first needs special approval for a social services residential facility, as well as approval for the overall site plan.

The project received preliminary approval from city staff at the end of July. City development staff said the tower’s lushly landscaped walkway would connect Southeast Third Avenue with the brick-paved Riverwalk, improving downtown for pedestrians. They also lauded it for its 16-floor “sky garden,” “generous glass treatment,” and balconies, a city memo described.

Also capturing city development officials’ interest is the parking garage with 178 space, which would be “screened with a richly-articulated screening punctuated by tile mosaics depicting vegetation,” the memo says.

It passed the city’s Planning and Zoning Board on a split vote of 4-3 in mid-August, on the condition that traffic issues be further studied.

The study determined that intersections near the tower can accommodate the extra traffic.

In other action, Fort Lauderdale commissioners Wednesday:

Gave the first of two approvals to the city’s $770.4 million budget for the spending year that starts Oct. 1. Water-sewer rates will go up, stormwater fees will increase, but the fire fee

BUDGET:

will not. The property tax rate will remain the same, but taxes will rise because of increased property values. The city will transfer $16.2 million from the water-sewer fund to the general budget. The final hearing is scheduled for Sept. 13. Commissioner Trantalis voted no because of the removal of water-sewer money. “When you’ve got millions of gallons of sewage spilling into our waterways, if that was done by a private entity, someone would be serving jail time,” he said, adding that the city needs to take the problems more seriously. Mayor Jack Seiler said the use of the watersewer money helps city residents because the money partly comes from utility customers outside the city.

CONSENT ORDER:

Approved a consent order with the state. The document allows the state to enforce the city’s violations of clean water rules, with its spills of nearly 21 million gallons of sewage into waterways since 2014.

Postponed to Sept. 19 a vote to purchase property on Riverland Road for a city park.

PARK:

City Manager Lee Feldman said city tests of green canal water are not complete. The county also is testing the strangely colored water to determine whether it’s an algae bloom caused by the city’s sewage spills, or something else, like fertilizer runoff.

GREEN WATER:

Rejected the idea of allowing slacklining — where participants balance on a stream of rope tied between two trees — in any city park. Commissioners said it seems dangerous.

SLACKLINING: