Downtown Hollywood project with 856 rentals up for approval

Downtown Hollywood may be poised for more development with a proposed major mixed-use project.

Fort Lauderdale-based BTI Partners’ plan for an 856-unit apartment development, called Block 57, will go before the city commission on Wednesday. BTI Partners proposes a site plan for the two-tower development on the east side of Young Circle, which would also have about 40,000 square feet of office space, and about 142,000 square feet of retail space.

The Hollywood City Commission also is scheduled to vote at its regular meeting on a proposed rezoning for the 3.2-acre Block 57 site at 1701-1735 East Young Circle from YC “Young Circle mixed-use district” (YC) to “planned development district” (PD).

The transformative Block 57 project would be one of several high-rise developments in recent years around Young Circle, a road around a circular 10-acre downtown park where north-south traffic on U.S. 1 merges with east-west traffic on Hollywood Boulevard.

Early this year, a 19-story mixed-use development known as Block 40 opened on the southwest side of Young Circle. It includes a 269-unit apartment building called 1818 Park on top of nearly 10,000 square feet of office and retail space. Hollywood Circle, a 25-story mixed-use development that opened in 2018 on the northern side of Young Circle, has 386 apartments, a 111-room Circ by Sonder Hotel, and a 48,000-square-foot Publix grocery store.

BTI, led by CEO Noah Breakstone, bought the Block 57 development site, which included a former Publix supermarket, in 2020 for about $16 million.

BTI Partners is planning to extend Hollywood Boulevard through the Block 57 site, between the development’s two 35-story towers, directly to Young Circle. Hollywood Boulevard now curves around the development site before merging into Young Circle.

The tower on the north side of the 141,623-square-foot Block 57 development will have 401 units, 69,421 square feet of retail space, and 38,525 square feet of office space, according to the site plan. The south tower is designed with 455 units, 72,250 square feet of retail space, and no office space. The site plan also shows a total of 1,572 parking spaces for both towers.

Near the Block 57 site, BTI Partners has another downtown development under way. The 361-unit apartment project with 17,000 square feet of retail space will be built on the 1.3-acre site of the old Hollywood Bread Building, a long-vacant structure near the south side of Young Circle that BTI demolished this year. BTI Partners and its equity partner Bridge Investment Group acquired the Bread Building last year for about $11 million.