One-stop shopping was a new postwar convenience in Fort Lauderdale when the Sears department store and auto shop opened in 1955 at Federal Highway and Sunrise Boulevard. They anchored Searstown, a diverse shopping center that once had a jeweler, a barber and an optometrist together with a beauty salon, a bakery and a Piggly Wiggly grocery store. Now that the shopping center is demolished, the old Searstown site is poised to become a one-stop living location where hundreds of apartments would co-mingle with offices and hotel rooms as well as restaurants, shops, a gym and a grocery store. This mini-city within a city will generate more vehicular traffic in an area where streets are already congested. But it also could support a new type of pedestrian-friendly urban living that encourages people to keep their cars parked.
“We’re hoping that they develop something that is attractive and will serve as a major entry point into the city. We’re still waiting to see what those designs look like,” Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis said in a January 8 interview. “Hopefully we can massage the site plan so that it will fit into the [road] infrastructure that is already reaching its maximum capacity.”
The previous owner of Searstown, RK Centers, won city approval to replace the shopping center with about 800 apartments and 80,000 square feet of commercial space, mostly offices. The current owner, Denver-based Aimco, has something denser in mind. Aimco plans to build roughly the same number of apartments on the Searstown site together with a 188-room hotel and 202,495 square feet of commercial space – or 2.5 times more than the previous owner had planned – including 55,000 square feet for a gym and nearly 17,500 square feet for a grocery store.
City officials have critiqued a lack of open space and other elements of Aimco’s site plan for a mixed-use development on the Searstown site called 901 North Federal.
“Open space should be used as pedestrian public space, and the proposed design contains vehicular access, a drop-off area, and parking which divides the open space … [and] creates conflict between the buildings, pedestrians, and the open space area,” according to the city government’s Development Review Committee. The DRC cited other shortcomings in Aimco’s proposed site plan for 901 North Federal, including a design that deviates from standards in the city’s master plan for downtown development and delivers a bland architectural addition to the city’s skyline. “Given that the location is a noteworthy property for downtown, there should be significant improvements made to the tower top that reflect the north gateway into downtown and also reflect the history of the property.”
But Aimco has continued to work with city officials on its site plan for 901 North Federal, also known as 901 North, and the company’s revision of a previously approved site plan for Searstown appeared close to winning DRC approval in early January. “The [DRC] review is progressing and should be approved soon,” a city government spokeswoman said in a January 5 email, adding that the “demolition [of Searstown] is a standalone action that can be conducted outside of the approval of a site plan.”
In late 2021, the previous owner of Searstown, RK Centers, won approval of a site plan to replace the shopping center with three apartment buildings, two 30 stories tall and one 15 stories, together with 72,000 square feet of office space and 8,000 square feet of restaurant space. Instead of going forward with the development, however, RK Centers cashed out the following year. The owner of Searstown since 1987, RK Centers sold the property at 901 North Federal Highway to Aimco for $64 million in early 2022, a few weeks after the Sears department store there closed.
Its central location just north of downtown Fort Lauderdale is the superpower of the old Searstown site, and its location is expected to drive the success of the 901 North mixed-use development. Aimco also promotes the development’s location in the Flagler Village area and its proximity to Holiday Park, just east across North Federal Highway. The sprawling city-owned park has attractions that include the renovated Parker Playhouse and, next to War Memorial Auditorium, the new Baptist Health IcePlex, with two hockey rinks of National Hockey League regulation size, one for public use and one serving as the main practice facility for the NHL’s Florida Panthers, complete with spectator seating.
But street traffic in the area is chronically clogged where Federal Highway and Sunrise Boulevard merge in a T-intersection. And Aimco’s redevelopment of the Searstown site on the southwest corner of that intersection would bring more motorists. City officials expect the development of 901 North to generate about 7,000 vehicle trips a day.
That might be just the first phase of an increase in traffic around 901 North, because Aimco has more developable land next to the old Searstown site. Aimco did not respond to requests for an interview.
At the same time Aimco bought Searstown from RK Centers in 2022, the Denver-based developer also bought two parking lots just south of Searstown. RK Centers got $20 million for the parking lot at 550 NE Ninth St. and $16 million for the other one at 450 NE Fifth Ave., according to Broward County property records. Indeed, Sunny Isles Beach-based RK Centers, led by Raanan Katz, had been planning to develop two 15-story buildings on the parking lots, one with about 175 apartments, the other with 190 hotel rooms. “It’s going to be almost its own neighborhood,” Andrew Zidar, vice president of development and acquisitions at RK Centers, told Fort Lauderdale Magazine in a 2022 interview. “The idea is we’re creating a sense of place, and not just one building.”
Yet it remains to be seen whether Aimco’s 901 North Federal development is so self-sufficient that its impact on vehicular traffic will be limited. “If it is a destination, people will travel there from other parts of the city. And those who live there are not always going to want to stay there,” said Mayor Trantalis, adding that 901 North is designed with few entries and exits on Federal Highway or Sunrise Boulevard for motorists. “They’re going to empty out on the side streets,” he said. “That’s where the mess is going to occur, and that’s my big concern.”
Fort Lauderdale City Commissioner Steven Glassman said he’s optimistic that 901 North Federal will serve as a stylish gateway to downtown. Glassman said the bland site plan Aimco originally prepared “had almost a suburban Atlanta feel. It just really didn’t do much for me. That has changed now, and I think they’re more cognizant of the fact that this needs to be a [visual] statement.” He also said Aimco has improved its design of the open space within 901 North and plans to install public art and provide artist workspaces there. “I’m much more pleased with the new site plan,” Glassman said. “It has much more of a feel of a gateway to downtown. I think it’s got a lot going for it.”
1 comment
Your project is magnificent It will add to the progressive build of Fort Lauderdale, now Boating Capital of the World, but, also a contender for major conventions.