Broward County commissioners will consider Tuesday whether to allow development of the area around the county-owned BB&T Center in Sunrise, the home of the National Hockey League’s Florida Panthers.
A 2016 study by the Urban Land Institute (ULI) recommended the development of apartments, entertainment venues, hotel rooms and office space of 140 acres that surround the arena. The 140-acre area is now a surface parking lot and undeveloped wetlands.
County commissioners will consider whether to allow the mix of developments that the ULI recommended. Doing so would require the county to apply to the city government of Sunrise to rescind a land-use designation for the 140 acres known as a Development of Regional Impact.
The ULI study of the area surrounding the BB&T Center recommended development of as many as 1,400 apartments, as much as 180,000 square feet of entertainment venues, 840 hotel rooms and up to 1.6 million square feet of office space.
Lary Mahoney, director of real estate development for Broward County, said retail development around the BB&T Center would not compete with the nearby Sawgrass Mills shopping center. [South Florida Business Journal] – Mike Seemuth