High-rises help Fort Lauderdale become ‘city of strength’
FORT LAUDERDALE — Jason Amato, a former Chicago resident, says he and his wife always liked what they saw when they visited South Florida on vacations. But it was their daughter, a University of Miami student, who helped clinch their decision to move to the region.
“My company was very open to allowing me to relocate,” said Amato, an executive with a wreath management firm. “We said, ‘let’s look at Fort Lauderdale’ because we kept hearing about it.
“When we saw it we were shocked. We lived in the west loop of Chicago, which has continued to be developed over the last 10 years. When we were in that Las Olas [Boulevard] area it was like Chicago in a good way. It was an In-between place we never thought about.’
The Amatos now reside in a 30th-floor condominium in Kolter’s 100 Las Olas tower downtown, which, at the moment, is the city’s tallest building at 46 floors and 499 feet high.
Thanks to years of aggressive development in the form of mid- to high-rise construction projects, Fort Lauderdale and other South Florida cities are enjoying a Renaissance in luxury living and new business in the form of professionals relocating from major northern and U.S. cities.
Despite inflation, high interest rates and fears of a recession, developers are still starting new high-rise projects, buying land and filing plans to build more.
“New high-rise projects coming to Downtown Fort Lauderdale are creating the density needed to sustain a vibrant, walkable, and connected downtown,” said Jenni Morejon, president and CEO of the Downtown Development Authority. The buildings “have brought a new energy to our city.”
Veteran Fort Lauderdale architect Daniel Adace, who is working on the proposed 579-foot Kushner-Aimco tower in Fort Lauderdale, calls tall towers a projection of a city’s “power.”
“Fort Lauderdale is becoming a city of strength,” he said. “The taller [buildings] are, and the more clustered they are together, the more influence it has as a city.”
Nelson Stabile, principal and co-founder of Integra Investments in Miami, traces the current developmental surge back to about 2014 with a momentum enhancer provided by COVID-19.
“The quality level of the developments taking place in South Florida,” he said, “are world-class worthy.”
Conga line of skyscrapers
A sampling of recent project kickoffs and announced intentions include:
In Fort Lauderdale, a New York developer unveiled the latest proposed high-rise project for Flagler Village at 201 Federal Highway north of Las Olas. It envisions two residential apartment towers of 45 and 47 floors.
Slightly to the south in the Las Olas district, the Related Group’s RD Design rental tower to the west of the Henry Kinney Tunnel is approaching a top-off that likely will snatch the tallest title in the city from 100 Las Olas. To its immediate south, another Related tall tower filled with condos is getting its start, also near the Kinney tunnel.
In Hollywood, BTI Partners is promoting two apartment towers close to 400 feet high to transform the east side of Young Circle. Additionally, as an offshoot of the recent sale of the Diplomat Beach Resort, Miamibased Related Group envisions a high-rise condo-hotel project on the west of State Road A1A.
Developers seem undaunted by bumps in the economy. True, the real estate development market is slowing a bit. But they believe Florida, which is said to attract 900 new residents a day from out of state, will continue to receive a steady flow of transplants, both foreign and domestic.
Last year, Florida’s population grew by 1% to more than 22 million people, making it the fastest-growing state in the country, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
“There is a wide variety and diverse group of buyers we find in our high-rises that come from all over the United States as well as internationally,” said Edwin Jahn, senior vice president of Kolter Urban of Delray Beach, developer of the 100 Las Olas tower. “They like the quality of the life up here.”
Urban developers see no alternative but to go vertical because they believe the remote work culture created by COVID will do a slow fade.
“I see everyone saying this remote work is not going to be sustainable,” said Harvey Hernandez, founder and CEO of Newgard. He noted that employers are directing employees to return to the office, forcing them to move from the suburbs and closer to urban areas.
“If that happens we are just going to have to build up, that’s the only way,” he said.
Miami spurs the trend
Depending on one’s viewpoint, the region’s growing penchant for heights is grounded in Miami’s explosive Brickell Avenue district, home to the Panorama, which at 85 floors and 868 feet currently is the state’s tallest building.
It was built by Florida East Coast Realty, the company founded by pioneering Miami high-rise developer Tibor Hollo, now 95.
Jerome Hollo, one of his sons and the company executive vice president, said his father has always believed in urbanism, the community-focused planning movement whose present-day goals are to reduce reliance on the automobile and create walkable neighborhoods packed with housing, workplaces and commercial activity.
“If I can put 1,200 people in there, then that’s two sewer connections and two water connections that feed like ribbons through the building,” Jerome Hollo said. “If you have the same development horizontally you would be talking about miles of infrastructure the municipalities would have to install and maintain.”
Opened in 2018, the Panorama is a pure rental tower that is in a neighborhood packed with hotels, office buildings and condo high-rises, many of which reach considerably higher than Fort Lauderdale’s tallest. It contains restaurants, a business center, nursery, 35-seat movie theater, private pool deck and exterior dens in most rental units.
The views are beyond stunning, consisting of most of Miami-Dade County, Biscayne Bay, PortMiami, high-rises lining Miami Beach and beyond, and the 66-floor, 817-foot Aston Martin luxury tower, which rises above the skyline on the north side of the Miami River.
“It’s really sort of spectacular,” Hollo said. “You can see Fort Lauderdale sometimes if it’s a really nice day.”