Plans to redevelop part of downtown Oakland Park are moving forward, with the commissioners agreeing to sell about 4 acres of city-owned properties to a development team for $11.2 million.
The Oakland Park City Commission last week gave initial approval to a contract with Horizon of Oakland Park LLC, a joint venture of Falcone Group and Kaufman Lynn Construction, to build a mixed-use development that would have as many as 319 apartments.
The price is $1.4 million above the highest appraisal of downtown properties bordered by Northeast 38th Street to the north, Northeast 36th Street to the south, Northeast 13th Avenue to the east, and Northeast 12th Avenue to the west. The properties include the existing city hall, which is across Northeast 12th Avenue from the Florida East Coast (FEC) railroad where Brightline trains operate.
The joint venture can close the deal only after obtaining site plan approval and building permits for the mixed-use development on the site that includes city hall, which will be relocated.
The Falcone-Kaufmann joint venture is negotiating to also buy two adjacent properties that would enlarge their downtown project, according to a city staff memorandum. One is a 0.7-acre property near the corner of Northeast 12th Avenue and 38th Street. The other is a 0.6-acre property next to the Omega Church property, a city-owned structure at 1300 Northeast 38th Street.
Another possible component of the downtown project is construction of a Brightline train station across the street from the existing city hall. A study by the Florida Department of Transportation recommended Oakland Park as one of six stops on the east side of Broward County for commuter train service on the FEC railroad, potentially from Tri-Rail, which runs trains on tracks farther west with suburban stops in Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade counties.
Boca Raton-based Falcone Group, led by Art Falcone, and Delray Beach-based Kaufman Lynn, led by President and CEO Michael Kaufman, have agreed to build or to help fund a downtown train station if the city gets commuter rail service.
“With the federal infrastructure money, the stars are aligned for it to happen. But it’s possible they are going to close on this property before they know for a fact that the train is coming,” said Ken Krasnow, vice chairman of institutional services for the Florida region of Colliers. His firm has been working with the city on its downtown redevelopment project.
Colliers helped the City of Oakland Park issue in August 2021 a public request for qualifications to redevelop the downtown properties, which drew responses from 12 development teams. Five of the 12 teams got a subsequent request for proposals, or RFP, soliciting plans to redevelop the downtown properties, and three of the five submitted proposals.
In March, commissioners authorized city staff to negotiate agreements with the Falcone-Kaufman joint venture after a selection committee ranked their RFP proposal as the best.
If they enlarge the redevelopment site from about 4 acres to 6 acres by acquiring adjacent properties, Falcone Group and Kaufman Lynn plan to build two mixed-use buildings, one with six stories, the other with five, and a three-story residential building. The buildings would have a combined total of 319 apartments, about 34,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space, and 47,800 square feet of commercial space.
Alternate plans for the three-building complex excluding either the train station or the 0.7-acre adjacent property on Northeast 38th Street have a smaller number of rental units, or as few as 284.
Falcone Group and Kaufman Lynn agreed to designate 10 percent of the units as affordable housing for five years, with below-market rents reserved for tenants earning 120 percent to 140 percent of area median income. The developers also agreed to reserve 18 percent of the subcontracts for local contractors to build the three-building downtown complex, which will cost an estimated $148 million to build, including land costs.
The city commission is scheduled to vote during its Aug. 3 meeting whether to grant final approval to the purchase and sale contract on second reading, and whether to approve a development agreement with the Falcone-Kaufmann joint venture for the downtown project.
The developers are required to make earnest money payments totaling $1.2 million prior to closing the $11.2 million acquisition of the downtown site. The developers would make three earnest money payments: $450,000 upon execution of the purchase and sale agreement and a development agreement with the city, $450,000 upon final government approval of the site plan, and $300,000 when the city government vacates the existing city hall. The last two are non-refundable payments.
The Falcone-Kaufmann joint venture is expected to close on the city property acquisition by the fall of 2024, and to complete construction of the Oakland Park redevelopment project in 28 months, Krasnow said.
A new city hall will be part of Sky Building, a six-story, mixed-use development that will rise at Dixie Highway at 38th Street in downtown Oakland Park. Sky Building is designed as two buildings, connected at the third level by a pedestrian skybridge, with nearly 40,000 square feet for the new Oakland Park City Hall, about 15,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space, and 140 residential units. The developer of Sky Building is Miami-based NR Investments.
“They should be breaking ground pretty soon,” Krasnow said.