Cypress Creek 'Urban Village' - Fort Lauderdale
For year, Cypress Creek Road in Fort Lauderdale has been a revolving door of major commercial activity, with big name companies setting up shop only to leave in a short period of time. Now, the city's Planning and Zoning Board has thrown its support behind sweeping code changes aimed at creating a greater sense of community and purpose. These changes will open the door to a so-called Uptown Urban Village encompassing 353 acres.
This idea, which has been 5 years in the making through a public-private partnership called Envision Uptown, includes leveraging transportation assets such as Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport, the Cypress Creek Tri-Rail station, as well as I95. The corridor currently enjoys an economic resurgence with the presence of Hotwire Communications, Trividia Health, Microsoft, Zimmerman Advertising, and the newly constructed Cypress Creek Medical Pavilion. All have joined the longtime resident software company Citrix Systems, which employs thousand of people along this corridor. Their presence is reminiscent of the 1980s, when companies such as Harris, Bendix, Allied Signal and other tech companies had operations here.
While commerce has rebounded, infrastructure problems remain. The corridor is clogged with 70,000+ cars every business day and there is little local housing to provide for thousands of corporate employees. A 2014 Urban Land Institute study said Uptown's success depends on transforming the car-dependent employment center around Cypress Creek near the interstate into a progressive village where people live, work and play and rely on their feet, bicycles or public transportation to get around.
The city board amended its underlying land-use plan for the area in a move that "basically streamlines the process" for change. If one of the land owners owns an office building and they want to develop the parking lot into some type of mixed-use, they won't have to go through the rigorous process that they typically would.
The amendment would allow for the building of more than 2,500+ residences in the area. The city would be able to limit the size of new buildings as opposed to designating how they are to be used.
One project is a restaurant and hotel on the NE corner of Cypress Creek and Andrews Ave. A Twin Peaks restaurant with outdoor seating would accompany a 10-story Fairfield Inn & Suites and 230-space parking garage.
Although the new amendments still need City Commission and Broward County approvals, municipal planners are looking to reach compromises with developers to ensure that their proposed projects at least approach the look & designs envisioned by the revised plan. The city shares the proposed zoning and land use codes code with inbound businesses - they hope to reach a 'happy place' with developers. The city has worked with the Twin Peaks-Fairfield developers, as well as with Starbucks and Wawa. Starbucks is open for business; the Wawa store's site plan was approved with changes. To the west, Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport, the nation's 5th busiest general aviation airport, is expecting economic development benefits.
SARA DORFMAN
NATIVE REALTY
305-906-2753
WWW.NATIVERE.COM