The Pompano Beach Downtown development is nearing an important inflection point – a May 14 City Commission meeting will decide the fate of several critical facets of the project. A contentious April 30 special meeting of the City Commission and Pompano Beach CRA Board put those items in doubt.
The meeting, slated to be an update on the project, turned into a litigation of previous actions by the Commission and CRA. Several members of the commission openly expressed confusion about the agreement between the City and the master developer, Roca Point Partners. Vice Mayor Allison Fournier said, “How did [the City and CRA Attorneys] allow this body to enter into an agreement… that is so lopsided as to the commitments by the City and the people relative to the other parties?”
CRA Attorney Claudia McKenna responded, “respectfully, that’s your opinion.” Going further, she said “it’s actually a well-designed business model that gives you options and flexibility…
“Because at the end of the day, what the CRA and this commission said is ‘we want to build a new downtown…’ We put together a legal document to let that happen.”
Commissioner Beverly Perkins said that after the original agreement passed 4-2, in which she was a dissenting vote, she “began to read the contract and I couldn’t believe some of the language.”
Commissioner Audrey Fesik, who was not a city commissioner when the original agreement was approved, holding up her copy of the documents, said, “this is a very fast timeline to absorb this much information; I do not have a legal background.”
The agenda for the May 14 meeting currently has four items slated for a vote. The first item determines how to finance the new City Hall building, which was approved in June 2024. According to City staff, approval of the proposed alternative funding method will save the City more than $100 million. If the vote fails, the City will be obligated to choose a more expensive option or to delay the building a new City Hall. Capital Improvements Director Tammy Good said of the current City Hall building “it is beyond its useful life.”
The second critical vote is the approval of a CRA infrastructure bond. Renderings of the new downtown all include a waterway running through the center of the development, the purpose of which is both practical and aesthetic. It will act as a drainage system and a water feature, which city staff believes will attract a better price for the parcels of land as they sell off to developers.
The last two votes are to approve changes and additional elements to the project. One is the conceptual design of the new City Hall building and additional commitments to the community, such as local contractor participation, a college resource center, a small business incubator, and affordable workforce housing. Another amendment to the Master Development Agreement would incentivize the master developer to encourage local business participation and also includes cultural components to recognize important figures in the Northwest Pompano community.
You can attend the Pompano Beach City Commission meeting on May 14 at the Pompano Beach City Hall at 6pm, or you can make your voice heard by contacting the mayor or city commissioner at Pompanobeachfl.gov/government/city-commission.
