Fort Lauderdale leaders said no to 17-story hotel two years ago. Will they say yes now?
FORT LAUDERDALE — A developer’s dream of building a 17-story beachfront hotel just minutes from Las Olas fizzled when commissioners spurned the plan two years ago over traffic concerns.
So he sued City Hall. And now he’s back with a revised plan.
Commissioners are expected to vote on the project in the coming weeks. A vote planned for Tuesday night has been delayed to give neighbors time to review the new plan.
If approved, the hotel — with 168 rooms and 115 condos — would rise on a 1.5-acre parcel at 3016 Bayshore Drive next to the W Fort Lauderdale hotel.
Three small hotels owned by the same developer, Pawel Plata of Bayshore Hotel LLC, occupy the block on the southeast corner of Bayshore Drive and North Birch Road next to the W Hotel. Those hotels would be knocked down to make way for the new tower.
When commissioners rejected the 190-foot-high tower in June 2019, they said it was not compatible with the neighborhood and worried it would make gridlock even worse on the barrier island.
Mayor Dean Trantalis and Commissioners Steve Glassman and Ben Sorensen cited concerns about traffic and delayed emergency response times.
“It just boggles the mind that we’re going to approve a project that’s going to dump another thousand cars in this area,” Trantalis said at the time. “We have got to draw a line in the sand, and the barrier island is the place to do it.”
The original project was expected to add 975 cars a day. The revised project is expected to add 827 cars a day.
Nearby Birch Crest Condos complained two years ago that the proposed hotel was too close to their building. The new plan moves the new hotel farther away from Birch Crest.
But critics still worry the project might be too big for the Central Beach neighborhood.
Paula Yukna says she sold her 15th floor condo at Birch Crest in June, fearful the project would get built.
“I lived there 27 years,” she said. “Never thought I would move. I moved exactly 2.5 miles north, partially because of this.”
Yukna says she helped lead the opposition in 2019 and is willing to help out again now.
“I told Birch Crest I will help them fight it again even though I am no longer there,” she said. “They’ve built up this barrier island so much, I’m afraid it’s going to fall into the ocean. It’s just gotten overly congested. It’s a nightmare.”
Commissioner Steve Glassman, whose district includes the beach, says he pushed to get the vote delayed to give neighbors time to review the new plan with the developer and his team.
“The commission rejected that application in June 2019,” Glassman said. “Then it went to mediation in January 2021. I just felt it was important for the neighborhood to have a thorough presentation of the changes made as a result of the mediation.”
Bill Brown, president of the Central Beach Alliance, said he was surprised to see the project show up on Tuesday night’s commission agenda. The neighborhood group opposed the project in 2019, with 202 voting against it and 28 voting in favor.
Brown said the vote might be different today, depending on the extent of changes made. But it’s still too soon to say.
Here are some revisions listed in the new plan:
Architectural accents, bright red in the original design, are now a pale blue.
The podium of the Bayshore Hotel has been moved to the north to leave 95 feet, 6 inches between the hotel and the base of Birch Crest. The first plan left 88 feet.
The tower portion of the Bayshore Hotel has been moved to the north to leave 115 feet, 4 inches between the hotel and the Birch Crest tower. The first plan left 101 feet.
More shade trees to help add a buffer between Birch Crest and the new hotel.
If the commission rejects the revised plan, the dispute would end up back in mediation, City Attorney Alain Boileau said. If the mediator were to rule in favor of the developer and the city commission continued to block the project, it would go back to court.