Kushner Companies wins approval for four-tower mixed-use project in downtown Fort Lauderdale

Kushner Companies won approval to bring a four-tower, mixed-use development to downtown Fort Lauderdale, with 1,300 apartments, office and retail, and possibly a hotel.

Construction of the Broward Boulevard project is expected to start in the first quarter of 2022 and finish in phases in 2026, Laurent Morali, president of New York-based Kushner Companies, told The Real Deal.

The Fort Lauderdale City Commission Tuesday night gave final approval to a rezoning that Kushner proposed for the 4.2-acre development site at 200, 300 and 520 Broward Boulevard. The zoning was changed from “regional activity center-west mixed use” to “regional activity center-city center,” Fort Lauderdale’s high-density downtown zoning district.

Morali said Kushner has a contract with Swire Properties of Hong Kong to acquire the site for $49 million. He said the project will represent “a western expansion” of the commercial district a few blocks east toward Las Olas Boulevard.

Still in a conceptual stage, the development near the Brightline train station in Fort Lauderdale also will encompass undetermined amounts of office space and ground-floor retail space, Morali said.

“There may be a hotel. We are thinking about it,” he said. “We’re in the second inning of this project.”

Morali said the company is interviewing architectural firms for the project and has not picked one yet.

The unnamed mixed-use development, known informally at Kushner Companies as the “Broward Crossing” project, will require debt plus equity investments totaling $700 million, Morali said. The company has not started shopping for a construction loan to finance the development, he said.

Kushner is active elsewhere in South Florida. “We have 10 sites in Florida, and we have been there for half a decade,” Morali said.

The company and its partner Block Capital broke ground in March for Wynd 27 and Wynd 28, a mixed-use development in Miami’s Wynwood area with 152 apartments, 33,500 square feet of retail and 46,000 square feet of office space.

Kushner is also planning a groundbreaking event on June 17 to mark the start of construction of 2000 Biscayne, a 400-unit residential tower at 2000 Biscayne Boulevard and other nearby parcels in Miami.