Developers plan 300-plus rentals on Fort Lauderdale church site

Developers want to build an apartment project on a church site in Progresso Village, which is quickly becoming Fort Lauderdale’s next hot spot.

Tal Levinson and Eric Malinasky plan a six-story building on almost a full block on the southeast corner of Northwest Seventh Street and Northwest Fourth Avenue, which includes the First Eben Ezer Missionary Christian Church, Levinson told The Real Deal. Plans still are in the works, but the vision is for more than 300 units with commercial space.

The project marks the first ground-up development in South Florida by Levinson and Malinasky, who are better known for their house flipping and commercial real estate investment through their Fort Lauderdale-based Home Venture Investments.

The Progresso Village project will be developed separately from Home Venture, and they have secured investment partners, although Levinson declined to name them.

Records show that Gilad and Avraham Ovaknin, Doron Malinasky and Eliyahu Levy are members of the entity that purchased the site. Doron Malinasky and Levy this year invested in an Art Deco building at 1450 Collins Avenue in South Beach that once was home to Jerry’s Famous Deli and Señor Frog’s.

Since July, the developers have assembled the almost 3-acre Progresso Village site that spans properties from Northwest Seventh Street south to Affiliated Development’s The Six13 apartment building, between Northwest Third and Fourth avenues. It also includes two lots on the north side of Seventh Street, which are being eyed for future redevelopment but aren’t included in the multifamily development site, Levinson said.

In all, the properties include vacant land; small, aging apartment buildings at 647 Northwest Third Avenue, 616 Northwest Fourth Avenue and 623 Northwest Third Avenue; a single-family house at 700 Northwest Fourth Avenue; and the church at 312 Northwest Seventh Street.

The developers have paid a combined $9.2 million, according to records, although they still are under contract for an undisclosed amount for a 0.2-acre lot next to the church.

The First Eben Ezer Missionary will move to a new, bigger site in Oakland Park at 3970 Northwest 21st Avenue, according to Levinson.

Finding its new home was not divine intervention, but rather the result of a long search and a complex deal. After finding the Oakland Park building, Levinson and his team put that property under contract and then transferred the contract to First Eben Ezer Missionary.

“This is a perfect example where everyone got what they wanted,” he said. First Eben Ezer “went to 4.3 acres and from 6,000 square feet to 8,000 square feet. And they walked away with a bunch of money in the bank.”

Construction of the FSMY Architects + Planners-designed multifamily project is expected to start in 2024, Levinson said.

It will add to the ongoing remaking of Progresso Village with new projects, and to the trend of redeveloping church sites.

This month, Eyal Peretz’s Fuse Group scored final approval for The Arcadian, an eight-story building with 480 apartments at 640 Northwest Seventh Avenue in Progresso Village.

Jonathan Fish’s Fish Property Management is working on a Wynwood-like arts district, called Thrive Progresso, with space for artists, dining and a brewery in renovated warehouses along Northwest Fifth Avenue, between Sistrunk and Sunrise boulevards.

In nearby Flagler Village, Miki Naftali’s New York-based Naftali Group plans an apartment project at 201 North Federal Highway and possibly on a site close by purchased from a church. Some members of the First Baptist Church Fort Lauderdale have deemed Naftali’s purchase of the church property at 501 Northeast Second Street less than holy, accusing congregation leadership of surreptitiously selling the site.

In another church redevelopment, Strategic Properties plans roughly 220 apartments in North Miami, partly on the Church of God Evangelical site at 12830 Northeast Sixth Avenue. Strategic and its partners paid $5.6 million for the property in May. The church has a one-year lease for the building, allowing time to find a new home.