Coconut Creek has massive plans

Shops, more than 2,000 homes on tap for downtown ‘MainStreet’

More than 2,000 new homes, parks, and places to shop and eat will soon be built on former farmland with Coconut Creek’s new downtown dubbed MainStreet.

After two decades of planning, the City Commission has now signed off on a land rezoning, the first of two required votes, to make MainStreet finally happen. It’ll be situated between Lyons Road and State Road 7, and between Wiles Road and Sample Road. The second vote could be in January.

The city started creating the idea in about 2003, and in 2005 county commissioners signed off on the MainStreet district. The recent land rezoning marked a new milestone: “This is the first real item on MainStreet that’s ever come before us,” Mayor Josh Rydell said at the commission meeting. “Step One,” he announced after the vote.

The idea is “the creation of a centralized downtown known as MainStreet, which is intended to provide for the development of a sustainable, mixed-use downtown environment that embodies the uniqueness of the city and will serve as a local and regional destination for the city’s residents and nearby communities,” according to city documents.

On Dec. 14, leaders gave tentative approval to the plan that allows for as many as 2,360 homes on about 200 acres.

MainStreet includes 16 new development blocks that will include for sale townhomes with front yards, villas and four-story condos, as well as rental apartments that could rise as tall as eight stories. There will be a lakefront park, bicycle lanes and a public recreation center. And the project could have as much as 225,000 square feet of commercial space, expected to become restaurants, retail shops and a grocer, mostly along Lyons Road.

The proposal also includes a

park called Johns Park, as a nod to the Johns family who owned the land for two generations.

The project could add an estimated 300 school-aged children to the area, and Scott Backman, the attorney for the team of developers, said he was “open to the idea” of opening a privately-operated K-8 charter school on 5 acres.

Buildout could take seven years, according to Backman.

Early beginnings

The land used to be a farm, and Eva and Joseph Johns were the original owners.

They moved here from North Florida sometime between 1913 and 1918 in a covered wagon, only for the winter at first, and farmed beans.

In Joseph John’s 1956 obituary in The Miami Herald, he was credited with the first developments in Oakland Park, and as a “prominent land owner, with holdings in a cattle ranch, citrus groves and farms, where some of the first truck crops were grown in the South Pompano area.”

Their son, Earl Johns, a Broward County pioneer, held on to his family farm even though developers repeatedly tried to buy. In 2009, Johns died at 90, and his heirs agreed to sell the land for Coconut Creek’s MainStreet. In a 2018 interview, Johns’ daughter said it was leased to a farmer to grow tomatoes.

What’s next

There are multiple players for this project.

GSR RE Partners LLC is the contract purchaser for the property, and 13th Floor Acquisitions LLC, Rosemurgy Properties LLC, Schmier Property Group Inc., and Giles Capital Group LLC are the proposed developers, one is concentrating on the for-sale product, two are building the rentals, and another doing commercial.

Backman told city leaders it will be “another year” before the closing date for the land.

That’s because each of the 16 blocks will need to come to the city for site-plan approval, said Scott Stoudenmire, the city’s director of Sustainable Development.

Digging lakes and laying roads will come first, Backman said, then another 10 to 12 months until buildings rise after the land development even starts.

Rydell said first batch of buildings could be open in two years “assuming the project stays on track. That’s a hard thing to speculate.”

He said it’s a chance to bring a “modern downtown area to the city with significant amenities for all Coconut Creek residents.”

Said Rydell: “I’m extraordinarily excited because I think this is going to be a development piece the city has envisioned for a long time,” he said. “I think it’s going to be an exciting time for Coconut Creek.”

CITY OF COCONUT CREEK A rendering show the proposed Coconut Creek downtown area that has been talked about for two decades. It features a mix of homes, parks and shops.