Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
A ‘wow’ gateway arrives with sticker shock
For much of their lives together, Broward County and Fort Lauderdale have had a tense relationship, kvetching about everything from the homeless, to garbage contracts, to traffic congestion, to Covid closures.
So it’s good to see the two governments working together on a signature city-county building in the heart of Fort Lauderdale.
But there is nothing good about the price tag they propose — up to $1 billion.
That’s ten times more than the new $100 million police station the city is building on Broward Boulevard.
It’s five times more than the $181 million Congress allocated for a new federal courthouse in Broward.
It’s at least two times more than the proposed $400 million courthouse that Miami-Dade voters shot down a few years back.
It’s almost one and a half times more than the $706 million (in 2019 dollars) cost to build Marlins Park.
It’s even more expensive than the costliest federal building ever constructed, the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, D.C., which cost $818 million when it was built in 1997.
Will the girders of Broward’s new government center be gilded in gold?
A conceptual drawing shows a canoeshaped building standing on one tip, reaching toward the sky, dominating everything in sight. As envisioned by the city’s mayor, Dean Trantalis, the building would be a “wow” centerpiece, a powerful architectural statement that signals you’ve arrived in Fort Lauderdale.
Without question, Broward Boulevard — the gateway to Broward’s city center — needs a facelift. It is a bleak stretch of asphalt that makes an inglorious introduction to our corner of paradise. And government buildings — courthouses, schools and post offices — have become landmarks in communities across America.
But in bustling Fort Lauderdale, private enterprise has built a soaring skyline. Is it really government’s job to spend taxpayer dollars to compete to build the biggest building of all?
The planned joint government center is breathtaking in scope. The three-acre campus at the site of the county’s central bus terminal — along Broward Boulevard at NW 1st Avenue — would have 1.7 million square feet, a new bus depot and space for 1,400 cars.
It will replace Fort Lauderdale City Hall and Broward’s Governmental Center — faded symbols of a simpler time when costs were measured in millions. The county offices, in an old Burdines store built in the 1940s, were declared obsolete 20 years ago, while Fort Lauderdale services are spread all over town.
The need for new government offices is real and the location next to a Brightline train station makes sense. But the bigger the dreams, the bigger the cost. And the bigger the cost, the bigger the questions.
Will this project correctly imagine a post-pandemic workplace? If many people will work from home, why does Broward need a gigantic monument to local government? (Two major tenants in the Governmental Center, the property appraiser and supervisor of elections, are moving to new offices on Commercial Boulevard.)
Is this a good use of limited resources? The county’s unmet capital needs, as outlined in a budget workshop, include a south regional courthouse, forensics center for the medical examiner, and upgrades to the elections office, main library complex and Broward College.
Yet another concern is that 14 elected officials — fourteen! — will have a say in what it looks like. That’s nine from the county and five from the city, working in tandem on a UDPA, a Unified Direct Procurement Authority.
Do the math. “Only” eight officials is a majority, and even that seems unwieldy. The involvement of so many elected officials adds a needed measure of accountability, but guarantees that this will be one of the most heavily-lobbied ventures in county history, despite a “cone of silence” preventing contact between developers and decision-makers.
Architects, consultants and financial advisors are already on board. Broward Mayor Steve Geller has tried repeatedly to slow the project, and has suggested buying an existing building with empty space and retrofitting it at a much lower cost. But no one else echoed the sentiment. “I know how to count votes,” Geller says.
Public buildings should be distinctive. But they don’t have to be grandiose.
As the magnitude of this sinks in, there will be second thoughts. At a city workshop, Fort Lauderdale Commissioner Heather Moraitis quoted from a Sun Sentinel headline on the project and voiced misgivings: “I’m not really in favor of a ‘sexy building’ at a cost I’m not really comfortable with,” she said, favoring a “more standard” concept.
The county is in charge and will shoulder a greater share of the costs (57% to the city’s 43%). That matters because in the past, the county has struggled repeatedly with complicated real estate projects such as the convention center, courthouse expansion and sheriff ’s headquarters. All were tainted by design problems or perceptions of backroom deals.
At the same time, the city and county face staggering costs to reduce flooding from the effects of sea-level rise. The lack of affordable housing also is a problem, as is the need to replace water and sewer infrastructure. And with so much homelessness in sight, it is illogical to spend so much money on a home for government workers.
If you have an opinion about this project, you should email your county and city commissioners. By the time the bulldozers arrive, it will be too late to raise questions.
Big projects have a way of going off the rails in Broward. When the inevitable finger-pointing begins, one of the questions will be, whose idea was this anyway? The county will say “the city” and the city will say “the county.” And you know what? They’ll both be right.
So it’s great that they’re working together, but there’s a lot riding on it — starting with a billion bucks.