A sampling of developments south of Las Olas Bouevard in Downtown Fort Lauderdale

(Illustration by Christiane Engel)
(Illustration by Christiane Engel)

 

1) 501 South Andrews Avenue

Riverparc Square is a major mixed-use development with nearly 800 residential units just south of downtown Fort Lauderdale. City commissioners approved it in September 2018 as three towers — two of them 43 stories tall, one 36 stories — with 297 hotel rooms and 790 residential units, plus 44,608 square feet of retail space and 296,459 square feet of office space. The company behind the project, led by South Florida developer Kevin J. Reilly, has not yet started construction on the 3.3-acre development.

2) 400 Southwest 3rd Avenue

Award-winning Danish architect Bjark Ingels designed a jagged-looking residential complex called Marina Lofts, but his six-year-old design has not yet come to life. Fort Lauderdale city commissioners approved the 856-unit development in 2013, the year after Marina Lofts developer Asi Cymbal paid $11.2 million for the six-acre site. Cymbal says construction could start by the first quarter of 2021.

3) 100 Southwest 6th Avenue

New York City-based firms Bizzi & Partners and Silverback Development bought this one-acre site just south of downtown Fort Lauderdale last year for $12 million, and they plan to build a 35-story, 401-unit rental apartment building there. The city-approved development, next to a Publix supermarket, is called New River Central. Bizzi and Silverback purchased the site from a company managed by Riverparc Square developer Kevin Reilly, which got $4.85 million more than the $7.15 million it paid in 2016, a 67 percent gain.

4) 416 Southwest 1st Avenue

Construction started in August on a 20-story, 230-unit rental apartment development by Miami-based Related Group called New River Yacht Club “Phase III.” In fact, it is the second phase of a rental development that began with the existing New River Yacht Club, a 24-story, 249-unit riverfront apartment building at 400 Southwest 1st Avenue. Related skipped over the original second phase, a 36-story riverfront condo with about 350 units.

5) 1661 South Federal Highway

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Construction is underway on 501 Seventeen, a mixed-use development south of downtown Fort Lauderdale that combines a 49,071-square-foot Whole Foods Market grocery store and a 248-unit apartment complex with a 668-space parking garage. The developer, Palm Beach Gardens-based Ram Realty, acquired the 3.2-acre development site in 2018 for $18.5 million. The seller, Hudson Capital, paid $7.5 million in 2004 and 2005 to assemble the site on the northwest corner of Federal Highway and 17th Street, the road to the southern entrance to Fort Lauderdale’s beach area. Ram expects 501 Seventeen to open for occupancy in the winter of 2020.

6) 550 South Andrews Avenue

Construction is underway on the 550 Building, a seven-story, 95,500-square-foot office building with an attached 634-space parking garage and about 13,000 square feet of ground-floor restaurant and retail space. The developer, Blackhawk Properties & Investments, assembled the 1.5-acre site in two acquisitions in 2013 and 2016 totaling $8.4 million. The developer expects the first office tenants to move into the building by mid-2020, according to Joseph Byrnes, senior vice president of Berger Commercial Realty, the firm preleasing space.

7) 629 Southeast 5th Avenue

Developer Dev Motwani paid $125 per square foot last year for this site south of downtown Fort Lauderdale and plans to build a 34-story, 251-unit apartment building. The development, called 629 Residences, would include a rooftop pool and club room and have unobstructed views of the ocean over Rio Vista, a low-rise neighborhood to the east. Motwani also promotes the site’s proximity to the 3rd Avenue bridge, which leads across the Tarpon River to downtown dining and shopping on Las Olas Boulevard.

8) Southeast 1st Street to Southeast 2nd Court

Orlando-based Zom Living is developing Las Olas Walk, a 456-unit rental apartment complex just east of the Kinney Tunnel, which goes under the Tarpon River, connecting downtown Fort Lauderdale and points south. In January 2018, Zom paid $33 million for the 3.16-acre site, where general contractor Kast Construction is now building the complex: two eight-story buildings connected over a street by two air-conditioned walkways.

9) 215 N. New River  Drive East

Fort Lauderdale-based Stiles and New York-based PGIM Real Estate are developing the Residences of Las Olas, a 42-story, 380-unit rental apartment building just south of Las Olas Boulevard in downtown Fort Lauderdale. Stiles broke ground for the development in March 2018 after Wells Fargo provided $100 million of financing for the project. The developers paid $17 million for the site, a parking lot measuring about 1.4 acres, which the seller (an affiliate of publishing company Tribune Media) had acquired in 1997 for $2.7 million.

10) 301 Southwest 1st Avenue

New York-based Property Markets Group is building a two-tower, 41-story apartment development with 1,214 units, called X Las Olas. The 650-unit first phase is expected to open in early 2020. In the summer of 2017, PMG paid $29 million for the site on a property called Las Olas Riverfront. The sellers, led by Dev Motwani, retained a 1.3-acre slice of the 3.7-acre Las Olas Riverfront property.