South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Feud may kill joint County/City Hall
Two entities have spent 5 years planning, but ballooning estimates have commissioners second-guessing
FORT LAUDERDALE — Curious minds are wondering if a long-awaited joint government campus is turning into another high-priced zombie deal, dead on arrival.
We’re talking about the new County/City Hall that would be shared by frequently feuding Fort Lauderdale and Broward County.
Just two weeks ago, county commissioners said they might as well build their own county hall. And now Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis is warning city leaders they may need to start thinking of a Plan B.
The two government entities have been talking for the past five years about building a County/City Hall on the grounds of the county’s central bus terminal in downtown Fort Lauderdale.
But the building, whose costs at one point ballooned to an estimated $1 billion, has yet to break ground. And things have turned frosty in recent months.
‘They lure you into bed’
“They lure you into bed with them and you have all these great expectations,” Trantalis famously said of the county a few months ago. “And in the end, you find out all they want to do is steal the covers.”
This week, Trantalis told the South Florida Sun Sentinel the county is still freezing out Fort Lauderdale regarding discussions on next steps, even though the two government entities are supposed to be partners on the deal. The two commissions had their last joint government meeting in June. The request for proposals for design and construction work was supposed to be sent out last August but that deadline came and went, with no explanation as to why, Trantalis said.
“We’ve kind of been kept in the dark for almost a year now,” he said. “We’ve asked for joint meetings [between the city and county commission] and we got no response. A couple of their members are on record now as being against it. If they are not going to move forward, we need to be told.”
Trantalis also worries about rising construction costs. After some county commissioners balked at the estimated $1 billion price tag, the cost got whittled down to $600 million. But Trantalis fears skyrocketing construction costs will only bump the price up again.
A long wait?
The county commission has called a May 5 workshop to discuss its next step, but tendered no invite to the Fort Lauderdale commission, Trantalis says.
“Oddly, no one from the city was invited,” he said. “We need to have a discussion on this. And they are having their own meeting. We are a partner on this. That’s not how partnerships work.”
In addition, Trantalis says he’s heard rumors it might take anywhere from 10 to 12 years to complete the building — and Fort Lauderdale can’t wait that long.
Fort Lauderdale’s City Hall, an aging building at 100 North Andrews Ave. that dates back to the 1960s, needs replacing, city leaders say.
The halls of the Broward County Governmental Center at 115 South Andrews Ave. are even more ancient, harkening back to 1947 when the building opened as a Burdines department store. The county moved in after buying the building in 1980.
So what is Fort Lauderdale’s Plan B for a new City Hall?
“We haven’t discussed it yet,” Trantalis said. “We could either find an existing site to build our building or we could buy an existing office building. We are eager to make a decision soon.”
The whole point of partnering with the county on a new government complex was to save money. But even that has changed, Trantalis said.
“I think a lot of the expectations about saving money have to be reanalyzed,” he said. “The cost of this building continues to creep upwards.”
Another sticking point is t he county ’s insistence on building a bridge for commuter rail right through downtown instead of a tunnel, Trantalis says.
The mayor has made it clear he thinks a train bridge would destroy the look and feel of a vibrant and growing downtown, especially one built so close to the new government campus.
On Thursday, Broward Mayor Michael Udine stopped short of saying the deal for a joint government headquarters is dead, but acknowledged that at least two county commissioners seem to have cold feet.
“We’re going to have a meeting in May with our commission to discuss next steps and see where everyone is on it,” Udine said. “It’s a tremendous investment and everyone should make sure they’re going in with their eyes open and that this is what all the parties want.”
Snubbed again
Why not invite Fort Lauderdale to the meeting?
Udine said it wasn’t his call.
“The county commission at the last meeting said they wanted to have a meeting just among the county commission,” he said.
“At the end of the day, we could build a governmental center [on our own]. If we did that, life would go on and the earth will still rotate. But let’s get the temperature of the entire county commission. In order to build something, you need two reasonable partners to do that.”
Udine says it still makes sense if they can save tax money and streamline government efficiencies.
“That always makes sense,” he said. “We’ll see.”
Trantalis may not have been invited to the county meeting on May 5, but he says the city will be watching.
“It would be nice if we had a workshop with them,” he told the city commission during a recent public meeting. “But I guess they don’t see us as the partner I thought we were. It’s becoming difficult for me to think this partnership is holding together. Whatever happens at that workshop is going to be pivotal as to the direction the city is going to take.”