Project could add massive facility

Isle Casino warehouse for mystery company would bring 1,200 jobs

In a move driven by COVID-19, the developer overhauling Isle Casino Racing Pompano Park is asking the city for permission to change its plans so it can include a warehouse and logistics center that could employ 1,200 people.

But word of the change raised protests among residents of nearby Cypress Bend and Palm Aire, who complained they never received any notice. And city commissioners, during a virtual meeting on Tuesday, called on The Cordish Cos. of Baltimore to provide more information about the size, scope and traffic impact that such an industrial project might bring.

It also would help, they added, if Cordish could identify the company that wants to operate in what would become an industrial park near the CSX rail line west of I-95.

Developer attorney Debbie Orshefsky and Cordish CEO David Cordish, said they could not identify the company because of a non-disclosure agreement. Speculation among commissioners and residents immediately centered on Amazon and Walmart, two of the world’s biggest e-commerce companies that are rapidly expanding delivery and fulfillment operations across the country.

But Amazon has already

asked the city for permission to build a delivery station near Sample Road and Florida’s Turnpike.

Cordish did say the mystery firm wants to build a facility that exceeds a million square feet in the northeast quadrant of the project site, which abuts Powerline Road and Southwest Third Street, also known as Racetrack Road.

Despite the protests, commissioners voted 4-2 to allow the proposed change to be tested at a second hearing in late October. At the same time, they urged Orshefsky and her client to meet with condo association presidents and other local residents to explain the proposed change.

“I didn’t get a single positive email on this project,” said Mayor Rex Hardin after the commission heard from four Pompano residents who registered their displeasure with the change.

Last year, Cordish, a decades-old builder of mixed entertainment projects, announced it was partnering with El Dorado Resorts, Inc., now known as Caesars, to develop a “world-class, mixed-use hospitality destination” on the 223-acre site that for years has been the home of a harness track and casino.

Dubbed “LIVE! Resorts Pompano,” the plan envisions upscale retail, dining, and entertainment along with a corporate office campus, residential towers and a 950-room hotel. A proposed Tri-Rail commuter station also became part of the mix as part of an effort to reduce traffic in the congested area south of Atlantic Boulevard and east of Powerline Road.

But Cordish planners, in a story familiar to many businesses trying to navigate the COVID-19 crisis, noted that changes in commercial real estate no longer favor the widespread use of office space as countless employers have ordered their employees to work at home.

So Cordish petitioned the city’s planning and zoning board to authorize a change in the “LIVE Resorts” plan and allow it to create an industrial segment while reducing the size of planned corporate office space.

“This change in the landuse entitlements will allow for an industrial use intended to be primarily a warehouse / distribution / logistics center use, but may include uses typically found in an industrial park,” Cordish says in its application to the city.

“The industrial is expected to be one of the first COVID-19 economic recovery projects on the property as this use has remained active throughout the Covid related economic shutdown,” Cordish said. “The use is likely to attract other industrial and office uses and stimulate demand for new housing construction.”

Cordish emphasized that the rest of the original project, which is scheduled to be built over the next 10 years, would remain largely intact.

But the rezoning request also cuts the size of a planned crystal lagoon that would go from 15 acres to 1.5 acres. The lagoon would contain a filtration system to keep the water clear, and would be open for swimming, kayaking and paddle boating. The revised plan also envisions a 12-acre lake near the lagoon for boating and fishing, and would be open to the public, Orshefsky said.

On Aug. 26, the planning and zoning board recommended that the City Commission approve the changes.

It is the second set of changes in a year for the project. In September 2019, Cordish received approval to add 2,800 multi-family residential units to the 1,300 units originally allowed.

But in a repeat of last year’s maneuvering, many residents in the surrounding communities said they did not receive any information about the warehouse plan. Some worried Tuesday that the entire project could become a commercial warehouse site, a notion that David Cordish quickly moved to extinguish.

“It doesn’t mean that it will be all of it,” he said.