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Development Spreads In Fort Lauderdale’s Sistrunk Neighborhood

Real estate development is picking up in the Sistrunk Boulevard corridor, a long-overlooked African-American community in Fort Lauderdale.

Developments planned there range from residential buildings and a performing arts center to a new YMCA, blues club and microbrewery.

Most of the developers are applying for public subsidies from Fort Lauderdale’s Community Redevelopment Agency, which focuses on eliminating blighted properties.

Among the planned developments is the Sistrunk Market and Brewery at 115 West Sistrunk Boulevard. The Fort Lauderdale City Commission will vote soon on a forgivable loan of $1.4 million to finance the transformation of a 23,000-square-foot warehouse to a food hall with a microbrewery and a rooftop gathering place. The manager of the development is Steven Dapuzzo.

Rendering of Six13 residential development at 613 NW Third Ave. in Fort Lauderdale

Just west of the site of the planned microbrewery location, Affiliated Development is preparing to build an 11-story residential tower with 142 units. The city has extended a forgivable $7 million loan to finance the planned development at 613 Northwest Third Avenue, called Six13.

A five-story complex with 400 apartments is planned at the southwest corner of Sistrunk Boulevard and Northwest Seventh Avenue. Felipe Yalale, an entrepreneur, and developer Peter Flotz bought almost the entire block for the complex, which would include 30,000 square feet for restaurants and retail stores. Flotz expects to present plans for the project to city officials in March and to seek a subsidy for a parking garage that would be part of the development.

The city has agreed to spend $10 million to fund construction of a new YMCA at 1409 West Sistrunk Boulevard, now occupied by the old Mizell Center. Just west of the site of the new YMCA, Miguel Pilgram, a Florida Lotto winner, bought properties between Northwest 14 Way and Northwest 14 Avenue for construction of a performing arts center and commercial plaza.

Pilgram also  has acquired a two-story building on the southeast corner of Sistrunk Boulevard and Northwest 15 Avenue, where plans to open a blues club upstairs and a restaurant downstairs.

 

Source: Real Deal

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Bridge Development Buys Dev Site In Pompano Beach

Bridge Development Partners just acquired another heap of land, this time in Pompano Beach, with plans to build a spec industrial park called Bridge Point Powerline Road, The Real Deal has learned.

Rendering of Bridge Point Powerline Road Business Park

The Chicago-based developer paid about $12.3 million for 40 acres of land at 1951 North Powerline Road and broke ground on the first phase of the 467,832-square-foot project, according to a source close to the deal. The purchase has not yet cleared records.

The trade, which breaks down to $307,500 per acre, includes a 150,000-square-foot warehouse fronting Powerline Road. The site is between the Florida Turnpike and I-95.

The seller, Waste Management Inc. of Florida, is relocating, according to a press release. Previous sales information is not available online. Kevin Carroll, Bridge Development Florida principal was not immediately available for comment.

Once completed, the project will feature three buildings, two of which will total 172,927 square feet each and share a 180-foot truck court. The third will span 121,978 square feet and feature a 120-foot fully-secured truck court, according to the release. Amenities for the buildings include high ceilings and 54-foot column spacing.

Last month, Bridge paid $28.2 million for 185 acres of land in Miami Gardens where it plans to build another spec industrial park called Bridge Point Commerce Center. Bridge is also in the midst of building a new distribution facility in Fort Lauderdale called Bridge Point Riverbend.

Nearby in Pompano, Farmers New World Life Insurance, a subsidiary of the Swiss insurance company Zurich Insurance Group, in August paid about $15 million, or nearly $120 per square foot, for a distribution center at 4000 North Dixie Highway.

 

Source: The Real Deal

Former Boca Raton IBM Campus: Set For Housing?

Could IBM’s former office complex in Boca Raton become more than just a hub of technology — and become a hub for housing, too?

Sources say the Boca Raton Innovation Campus , as it is now called, is being marketed for sale by its current owners. This time, potential buyers are taking a look at doing something more with the Boca Raton site than using it only for leased office space. The site could become a mixed-use complex featuring apartments, shops and a hotel, too.

Plans are afoot to seek the city’s OK to build 720 apartments, 20 townhomes, a 120-room hotel and 81,000 square feet of retail space. The property’s owners are San Francisco-based Farallon Capital Management and New York-based Next Tier HD, which bought the property for an undisclosed sum in January 2015. They are said to be working closely with Boca Raton to allow new zoned uses for the 130 acres on which the property sits.

The move is in line with changes made to the nearby Park at Broken Sound, formerly the Arvida Park of Commerce, where the city has allowed homes and shops to built on land that formerly was limited to light industrial research buildings. The city is placing a greater emphasis on housing that sits near public transportation, and the Boca Raton Innovation Campus has a Tri-Rail station directly to its east.

The iconic 1.7 million-square-foot building that once housed IBM’s software and hardware developers could remain intact, or parts of it could make way for other uses. But it’s unlikely large portions of the old IBM building will be felled.

In addition to its historic value, the complex houses a range of corporate tenants with varying lease lengths. Tenants include Bluegreen Corp., Tyco Integrated Security, TransUnion, Modernizing Medicine and MDVIP.

Since the purchase, Next Tier and its on-site broker, CBRE, have brought occupancy to 71 percent from 55 percent. More deals are in the works, too. A broker for Eastdil Secured, which is marketing the property, could not be reached for comment.

“Although the property has historic value, it does not have a historic designation from either the city of Boca Raton which could limit any change to the buildings or the National Register of Historic Places, according to Susan Gillis, Boca Raton Historical Society curator. “But we would like it to.”

The former IBM building is special to fans of both technology and architecture. In December 1966, IBM announced its purchase of 550 acres west of what is now Interstate 95, south of Yamato Road and east of Military Trail. IBM was the first company to build an industrial site in the scrubland of the west, according to the Boca Raton Historical Society.

The building was designed by Marcel Breuer and Thomas Gatje and featured buildings for administration and product testing, development labs, manufacturing and distribution. The buildings feature a unique Y-shaped design, considered an engineering marvel for its day.

“The building is considered an oustanding example of the Brutalist style of architecture,” Gillis said.

The building isn’t just important for its aesthetic elements. The architects also designed the structure to withstand a Category 5 hurricane.

“They put a lot of thought into those buildings, way back when,” said Michael Masanoff, who was part of the Blue Lake Ltd. group that bought the building from IBM in 1996.

On March 31, 1970, 3,500 people, led by IBM chairman Thomas J. Watson Jr., attended the ceremonial dedication of the new facility, according to IBM’s website.

Over time IBM dominated the city, and “wild ducks” flew high in Boca Raton. That was the nickname of a small group of engineers, marketing experts and communications specialists led by Philip “Don” Estridge. They designed the first personal computer, which was introduced in 1981. (On Aug. 2, 1985, Estridge died in the crash of Delta Flight 191 in Dallas. A former IBM building became the Don Estridge High Tech Middle School, named in his honor.)

By the mid-1980s, IBM employed nearly 10,000 people at this site and in office buildings clustered in the area. But by the end of that decade, IBM had stopped manufacturing at the site, moving this function to North Carolina. Then the software development team moved to Texas.

With employment dwindling, IBM sold the property for $46 million in 1996. The property became the Blue Lake Corporate Center, then the T-Rex Corporate Center, when an ownership group bought it from the Blue Lake group for $138.65 million in 2000.

Private equity fund Blackstone Group bought the site for $192.7 million in 2005 and renamed it the Boca Corporate Center & Campus, until Farallon and Next Tier renamed it the Boca Raton Innovation Campus, or BRIC.

In the years since IBM left the building, the area around the complex has matured. A lively strip of retail shops now fronts the building along Yamato Road, and a new interstate interchange is nearly complete on the south side of the property, at Spanish River Boulevard.

More importantly, demand for in-town housing is huge, especially since the city is virtually out of space for new homes, leading many developers to snap up golf course to transform into houses.

Owners of the Boca Raton Innovation Campus have worked to brighten up the old office interiors with renovations and amenities, including adding a fitness center and daycare and renovating the conference room and lobbies. And since no one is building new office space in Boca Raton, existing office space is becoming scarce, too.

Also helping boost the property’s allure, particularly on the heels of this hurricane season: The building has its own backup generator, installed by the Blue Lake group years ago.

 

Source: Palm Beach Post

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Port Everglades Sets Cargo Record

Port Everglades has topped its previous record for containerized cargo volumes with 1.076 TEUs moving through the Port in fiscal year 2017, which ended 30 September 2017.

Containerized cargo increased a 4 percent compared with the previous year, and was up 1.5 percent on the previous record set in 2015 of 1.06m TEUs.

“The volumes of refrigerated produce coming into Florida through Port Everglades from Central America is significant,” said Port Everglades chief executive and port director Steve Cernak. “It represents more than half of all perishable cargo that arrives in Florida by ocean.”

Operating revenue for the year-long period remained steady at US$163m.

“Port Everglades is an economic generator for Broward County and Florida that delivers financial stability and jobs in our community,” said Broward County mayor Barbara Sharief. “This record year is a positive indication of Broward’s commitment to the businesses that choose to locate here.”

Meanwhile, It was also announced that Mission Produce and its Colombian partner Cartama had just sent the first direct shipment of Colombian avocados to the US, arriving at Port Everglades.

 

Source: Fruitnet