Rooftop club and pool coming to downtown

Entertainment venue part of project going up on Federal Highway

Locals looking to raise their game during a night at the club or a day partying by the pool will soon have a new destination in downtown Fort Lauderdale — a rooftop at Quantum Flagler Village.

On schedule to open in March, the ninth-floor entertainment venue is part of an art-minded hotel-residential project going up on Federal Highway, across the street from Holiday Park. The property includes two 15-story apartment buildings and a Marriott hotel, crowned by the indoor-outdoor lounge and pool bar.

At the helm of the party space is Fort Lauderdale nightlife trailblazer David Cardaci, the man behind downtown hot spots Rhythm & Vine, the Wilder, Roxanne’s and, soon, a restaurant-nightclub called the Abbey. The name of the new rooftop venue remains up in the air.

“This is the new epicenter of Fort Lauderdale,” Cardaci says, citing Flagler Village and ongoing redevelopment plans at Parker Playhouse and the War Memorial across the street. “This is the new place where all the cool kids want to be … the guys and gals that just got out of college, maybe, or are getting their first real, proper job, making a fair amount of dough. They’re working, living and playing here. We’re here to provide the play.”

The Quantum space will be one of the only rooftop pool bars in the region to be accessible to the

public without a day pass ( joining the free rooftop pool at the Bahia Mar Fort Lauderdale Beach).

The ninth-floor venue will include a 1,500-squarefoot lounge-nightclub space with retractable doors that open onto a 10,000-squarefoot pool deck, with two gazebos, two bars and a turfed area with a retractable awning. Through a transparent barrier, there is an unobstructed view of the downtown skyline to the south and, over the green expanse of Holiday Park, the ocean is visible.

The club will have its own elevator and its own entrance from the street. Across a side street, a fivestory garage will have free guest parking on the first three floors and a dedicated entrance for non-residents. The garage will have a pool on the roof, which also will have entertainment programming.

DJs will set up inside the ninth-floor space Friday-Sunday, and doors will be opened for pool parties. The venue will be open weekdays from about 4 p.m. to midnight, until 3 a.m. Friday-Saturday. Day parties by the pool will begin at 11 a.m. Saturday-Sunday. The space can accommodate just under 500 people inside and out.

Cardaci says a menu of burgers, sandwiches and elevated finger food will be available, including lobster tails, crab claws, shrimp and charcuterie.

He expects the pool area to be suitable for families on weekends until 3-4 p.m. when the tone “may shift a bit.”

The space seems destined to be among the most popular rooftops in Fort Lauderdale, joining Rooftop @1WLO, with its tower-lined view of Las Olas Boulevard; oceanfront pool deck Wet at the W Fort Lauderdale; and the swanky Sparrow on the 25th floor at the Dalmar Fort Lauderdale, four blocks south on Federal Highway. Also a Marriott property, the Dalmar has a fifthfloor pool (with a $30 day pass).

Anyone frustrated by a velvet rope and inscrutable elevator protocol to reach some rooftops will be happy to know Cardaci feels your pain.

Quantum Flagler Village is being built by Hollywood-based

Prime Group and will include a range of shops and restaurants on the ground floor and a welcoming terrace facing Federal Highway.

Prime Group CEO Larry Mayer Abbo, a Hollywood resident, says it’s important that the property fit the creative vibe of Flagler Village.

Abbo and brother Edward, Prime Group COO, also built Marriott’s Art Ovation hotel in Sarasota, and Abbo expects Quantum Flagler Village to be a similar stage for exhibits and a hangout for local creatives, both inside and out.

A block-long space under an overhang on the ground floor of the adjacent garage on Northeast Fifth Avenue will be its own gathering place, a turfed and muraled spot called the Lawn on Fifth.

“That area is to invite everyone from food trucks to art exhibits, to have the Mass District [Art Walk] join us, all the festivals happening here on a monthly basis — we want to be a part of that,” Abbo says.