Tree-lined median is out for wider sidewalks on Las Olas
FORT LAUDERDALE — Those pretty olive trees that perch in the median along Las Olas will disappear. So will the median.
It’s part of an ambitious undertaking years in the making that will change Fort Lauderdale’s most famous boulevard as we know it. The plan will cost more than $100 million and take years to make happen.
Some are worried it won’t. Tom Godart, vice president of Las Olas Isles Homeowners Association, urged the commission to get on with it as they debated the details Tuesday night after hearing from fans and critics of the plan.
“You can fine tune all of this,” Godart said. “You shouldn’t be getting caught up in the minutiae. Otherwise, none of us will see it happen in this lifetime.”
Details of the plan may still be in flux, but commissioners made it clear Tuesday they support eliminating the tree-lined median that begins just east of the tunnel at Federal Highway.
That will free up space to widen the sidewalks along the shops and restaurants and plant a new type of tree on each side of the street.
Mayor Dean Trantalis said he
envisions a boulevard lined with large flowering trees that shade the pedestrians strolling along instead of the cars, as the olive trees do now.
“They need to be mature trees from the get-go,” he said Wednesday. “I’m looking to flowering trees. We live in the tropics. The flavor of trees is limitless in Florida, and we can take advantage of species that are well suited to our environment. We have purple. We have orange. We have yellow.”
The aim is to make Las Olas prettier and safer, too.
The 2.4-mile boulevard has five distinct neighborhoods, each with its own needs and personality: Downtown, the Shops District, the Colee Hammock neighborhood, Las Olas Isles and the beach.
Fort Lauderdale has spent nearly $1 million coming up with a design wish list, bringing in the Corradino Group in October 2019 to brainstorm with business and neighborhood leaders and create a plan for each section.
Some critics think the city should leave things alone. After years of work, most agree that’s unlikely.
“I don’t think doing nothing is an option,” Commissioner Steve Glassman said. “We’ll get there. It just needs some massaging. Las Olas Boulevard is a big, complex street. You can’t rush these things. We’ve had two years of hard work. This is our first attempt to holistically look at the corridor.”
Late Tuesday, after hearing from friend and foe of the redesign plan, commissioners began the hard work of deciding which parts should stay and which should go.
The idea of bringing a serpentine-like curve to the three-block shopping district along Las Olas got a big fat no.
They also rejected the idea of eliminating street parking along that corridor. Merchants were demanding that parking stay on the street, and so it will.
A controversial proposal to go from four to two lanes of traffic in the downtown zone was also nixed in the interest of keeping traffic moving. Dozens of highrise towers have already been built and more are in the pipeline.
Supporters and critics of the plan sent letters to City Hall and spoke up at Tuesday’s meeting, either urging the commission to get on with it or warning them to get it right.
“This has been something that has been a long time coming and is needed for the next generation of residents in Fort Lauderdale,” wrote Mike Weymouth, president of The Las Olas Co., the shopping district’s largest property owner.
On Tuesday, Weymouth urged city leaders to revamp the Shops district first.
He also advised that the project get underway next year when construction begins on the new Tunnel Top Park.
The $12 million project will transform Las Olas at the north end of the tunnel on Federal Highway into a new park and gathering spot with expanded pedestrian walkways, lush landscaping and terraced seating areas. The park will be built in conjunction with a $16 million rehab of the stateowned tunnel by the Florida Department of Transportation.
“These merchants cannot endure having that whole section blown up for two years and then three or four years from now tear it up again,” Weymouth said. “They will not survive.”
Leaders from Las Olas Isles objected to the narrowing of the lanes as a way to slow down traffic.
Under the consultant’s plan, outside lanes would go from 12 feet to 11 feet and inside lanes would be 10 feet wide in an effort to get drivers to slow down on what some call a speedway to the beach.
“We know they’re speeding,” said Joe Corradino, president of Corradino Group. “We need to tamp that back with landscaping and lane narrowing. We need to coax the speed down through physical improvements.”
Paul Daly was one of several residents who thought the plan might backfire, causing more accidents.
“That’s not going to slow down traffic,” he said. “That’s going to make a very dangerous road. If you narrow those lanes, there’s going to be a lot of yellow tarps in the road.”
Another sticking point set off a turf war between Colee Hammock and Las Olas Isles.
Under Corradino’s plan, Southeast 16th Avenue would be closed to northbound traffic coming from Las Olas to protect the Colee Hammock neighborhood from cut-through traffic.
The idea sparked an outcry from homeowners who live east all the way to the beach and use 16th Avenue to get to Broward Boulevard.
Commissioners might rely on a traffic study to determine whether the plan would work.
“I can’t make any decisions until I have data,” Commissioner Ben Sorensen said.
Corradino says 15th Avenue can handle the extra traffic with an extra eastbound turn lane onto Las Olas. To make it work, the city would need to take 10 feet of land on the western block of Southeast 15th Avenue along with a 110-square-foot chunk of the northeastern corner.
Trantalis and Sorensen weren’t sold on the idea.
“Homeowners along that route are going to be against any taking of their property,” the mayor said. “We have to be respectful of their property rights.”
Commissioners did give consensus to parts of the plan, but deferred a vote until June 15. They set up a 4 p.m. workshop for that day to hash out details affecting Colee Hammock and Las Olas Isles. An official vote would likely come later that night.
At some point, Fort Lauderdale will have to figure out how it will pay for a makeover that’s likely to cost millions.
“This is not going to happen tomorrow,” Glassman said.
Peter Partington, a former city engineer who lives in Fort Lauderdale, urged commissioners to move things along.
“I, too, would like to see something before I die,” he said.