Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Train gets development rolling
Apartments, shops and offices springing up near Brightline stations
Brightline’s train stations are luring new development and other amenities into South Florida’s downtowns.
New offices and hundreds of apartments will open this year near the stations in Miami and West Palm Beach, and Fort Lauderdale officials expect a similar project across 7 acres in their city, too.
The higher-speed train service, which debuted in January, now runs 11 northbound and southbound trips each day among Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. Beyond that, Brightline says it also plans to spur redevelopment in the communities it’s in.
Here’s what’s in the works, from new housing near the stations to more travel options for Brightline commuters.
West Palm Beach
A road with sidewalks connecting the West Palm Beach Brightline station entrance, 501 Evernia St., to Clematis Street is set to open this summer.
This easy access to Palm Beach County’s most popular pedestrian space will not only benefit the train passengers but also residents of a
new 24-story tower, scheduled to open in the fall.
Developed by Brightline and Lincoln Property Co., Park-Line Palm Beaches, 591 Evernia St., will have 290 apartments and 12,500 square feet of retail space overlooking the train station and downtown West Palm Beach.
Lincoln Property Co. recently announced it would start pre-leasing the building, which is expected to have amenities such as a pool deck, fitness center with outdoor yoga lawn and spin room, gaming area, cyber café, playground for dogs, pet grooming salon and 24-hour concierge.
The new road isn’t the only way for Brightline’s customers to get to the rest of West Palm Beach. The northern terminus also has SkyBike, a bike-share program, and all three stations have Avis rental cars and Lyft pickup and dropoff areas.
Free Ride, a six-seat vehicle, picks up passengers who request the service from an app at the station from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., dropping them off at stops around downtown and the town of Palm Beach.
Commuter Lisa Eichorn lives near Fort Lauderdale, but takes the train to her software design job in West Palm Beach. Once she gets off the train, she’s a 5- to 10-minute walk from work, she said.
“I would have never taken this job if I didn’t have Brightline,” Eichorn said.
Miami
Brightline added its MiamiCentral station, 600 NW First Ave., to its route in May, and new development is underway nearby.
Attached to the station are a 12-floor office and retail building, which opened last fall, and another office building is expected to be complete this summer.
Construction on two residential towers, with a combined 816 rental units, will be finished in 2020.
While Brightline hasn’t announced what grocery store will be built in the Miami station’s retail space, by 2019 riders will be able to pick up food and go to the gym before catching a train. Einstein Bros. Bagels is already serving breakfast there.
Unlike the other Brightline stations, there is other mass transit available at the Miami stop, including Metromover and Metrorail.
Brightline said Tri-Rail also will start serving the downtown station, but didn’t say when the service will become available.
David Dilts, a Fort Lauderdale attorney, uses Brightline to travel to Miami for work. From the Brightline station, he can take the Metromover one stop to get to the courthouse, he said. He’s noticed that the seat next to him on the Brightline train, which usually had been empty, now is typically occupied.
“I can see more and more people on the train every day,” Dilts said.
Through the floor-toceiling windows of the second-floor lounges in Brightline’s stations, riders can’t hear the honks of South Florida commuters. Dilts said the train is an alternative to bumper-tobumper traffic and the aggravation of sitting behind a semi truck going below the speed limit on I-95.
“We hoped you enjoyed your care-free, car-free ride,” a woman announces over the PA system as the train approaches each station.
Fort Lauderdale
Plans haven’t been announced for what Brightline might build on more than 7 acres it owns around its Fort Lauderdale station, 101 NW Second Ave.
The neighborhoods around the station, including Fat Village Arts District, Progresso Village and Flagler Village, are “growing and vibrant and will allow for future development of the 7 acres we own,” said Ali Soule, a Brightline spokeswoman.
Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis said he expects Brightline will build residential and office space there. He is scheduled to meet with the company and city staff at the end of this month to work toward making “our collected vision a success in that area,” he said.
Trantalis also envisions a government center with city and county offices and a federal courthouse. The center would be built on 16 acres already owned by the city and county, north and south of Broward Boulevard near the train station.
While this idea is still in the early stages, Trantalis hopes developers will be able to buy the county’s current building and create a vertical mall that could be “a destination within itself.”
Meanwhile, other developers already have taken the lead in planning to build near the Brightline station in Fort Lauderdale.
FAT City, a mixed-used development with 612 rental units expected, was approved last year to be built two blocks north of Broward Boulevard.
A 202-room hotel by Hilton is also planned to open early next year at 315 NW First Ave.
Meanwhile, colored arrows — green, orange, blue and pink — spray-painted on the sidewalk guide Brightline riders to what’s already in downtown Fort Lauderdale. The green-arrow path goes to Las Olas Boulevard, orange stands for Flagler Village, blue leads to the Riverwalk and pink heads to the Broward Center for the Performing Arts and other cultural sights.
Green, blue and pink paths head north from the station and cross Broward Boulevard.
Christopher Roog, director of economic development for West Palm Beach, uses the train to get to meetings for work in Miami and visit Fort Lauderdale. He said the location of the Fort Lauderdale station is great, but when he walks or bikes to downtown, he has difficulty navigating Broward Boulevard.
“It’s not Brightline’s fault, but Broward Boulevard needs to be finished there,” Roog said. “The sidewalks, the street, everything about Broward Boulevard needs to be much more pedestrian and bike friendly.”
Roog and other commuters can expect to see those improvements soon. A Florida Department of Transportation project that will repave those sidewalks is expected to be completed by late August.
The $16 million construction project spans Broward Boulevard from just east of I-95 to U.S. 1, spokeswoman Dayana Diaz said.
The main purpose of the project is to give the boulevard 4-foot-wide bike lanes in both directions, Diaz said. Construction crews also are resurfacing the roads and adding new curbs, sidewalks and traffic signals near the Brightline station. While sidewalks on the north side of Broward Boulevard are already finished, the road’s south side is lined by orange traffic cones and patches of dirt. A new sidewalk is expected to be complete in two to three weeks, Diaz said.
Alan Hooper, a chairman for the Downtown Development Authority, said Fort Lauderdale holds a central location on the train line. However, he said, he had hoped for a form of transportation that would make getting from the station to the city’s attractions easier.
“We are essentially the center of the universe when it comes to Brightline, but I think we are missing a key ingredient,” he said.
Brightline had hoped that the now-derailed Wave streetcar project would have connected the Fort Lauderdale station to the rest of Broward’s downtown. However, if the city and Brightline can make the area more inviting for pedestrians, “the streetcar becomes superfluous,” Trantalis said.
Already, the city’s Sun Trolley has stops at the train station and a bus stop across the tracks, he said. Soule said Brightline is in discussions with the city, county and state about “long-term walkability solutions.”
James Cromar, the strategic initiatives deputy executive director of the Broward Metropolitan Planning Organization, said the area has potential for more transit development.
“There’s so much construction going on right now, we aren’t really sure what’s next,” he said. “But in a year, there will be more there in time.”