Developers from China plan to build a mixed-use project with 141 apartments in the Progresso Village area just north of downtown Fort Lauderdale.
State records show that Bingsong Li and Xiaokai Shen, who live in Parkland, manage 745 North Andrews Avenue LLC, the company developing the 12-story project on North Andrews Avenue about six blocks north of Fort Lauderdale’s city hall.
Li and Shen’s company bought the development site at 745 North Andrews Avenue in October 2017 for $2.5 million, according to property records. The property is currently the site of a car dealership with a 60-year-old building, records show.
Li and Shen have developed properties in China, said Gustavo Carbonell, a Fort Lauderdale architect who designed their apartment development and has guided the project through the city approval process. An attorney for the developers, Akerman partner Stephen K. Tilbrook declined to comment on the developers.
“Now we’re going through the site plan approval process,” Tilbrook said.
A conceptual site plan shows that 75 percent of the planned apartments would be two-bedrooms and 25 percent one-bedrooms. Each would have a balcony. The development also would include 303 parking spaces and a covered storage area for as many as 50 bicycles.
An amenity deck on the fifth level of the building would have a swimming pool and an exercise room. The developers also plan to build about 8,500 square feet of ground-floor commercial space for retail or office use, Carbonell said.
Fort Lauderdale commissioners unanimously rezoned the 1.46-acre development site Tuesday night from Planned Unit Development (PUD) District to Northwest Regional Activity Center Mixed Use East (NWRAC-MUe). The city previously had rezoned the development site at 745 North Andrews Avenue to PUD in 2004 for a 48-unit residential development that collapsed due to the 2007-2009 economic recession.
Carbonell said the developers expect to start construction in two years, after presenting their apartment project to the city’s development review committee and applying for site plan approval. Construction would take another two years to complete. He said he is unaware how the developers plan to finance construction.
Homeowners who live near the development site supported the rezoning, according to a letter from JJ Hankerson, president of the Progresso Village Civic Association.
Multifamily development has surged just east of Progresso Village in Flagler Village, where new apartment properties and potential development sites can command eight-figure prices.
In January 2020, Global Horizons Group bought a 71-unit assemblage of seven buildings on 2.3 acres near Progresso Village for $9.7 million.