Pompano Beach Approves $2 Billion Downtown Investment
Sam Rosser
June 21, 2024
In a nearly five-hour special meeting of the City Commission and the Pompano Beach Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA), a master developer agreement with RocaPoint Partners for downtown Pompano Beach was approved in a 4-2 vote.
The agreement, decades in the making, ensures $2 billion in funds for the redevelopment of an area stretching from Dixie Highway to I-95 and from East Atlantic Boulevard in the south to Martin Luther King Boulevard in the north.
The project is ambitious. It includes 4.2 million square feet of new office space, retail shops, residential offerings, and public areas. Additionally, a new city hall is proposed to anchor the downtown area, ensuring a steady supply of lunch-goers to the restaurants that are planned to be within walking distance.
The project is ambitious. It includes 4.2 million square feet of new office space, retail shops, residential offerings, and public areas. Additionally, a new city hall is proposed to anchor the downtown area, ensuring a steady supply of lunch-goers to the restaurants that are planned to be within walking distance.
The current 34-year old city hall is not up to the City’s own building ordinances and has been outgrown by a growing city staff. Any retrofitting would also require compliance with the American Disabilities Act, which would be more costly over the long run according to an analysis from the consulting firm CBRE presented at the meeting.
The City and CRA have been buying land on the development site for more than 35 years. Assistant City Manager Suzette Sibble said at the meeting that presently, the land, which totals more than 75 acres, only generates a few hundred thousand dollars per year in tax revenue.
Once complete, the project is estimated to generate $42 million in tax revenue and more than a billion dollars in economic impact each year.
The meeting was a relatively lively affair that seesawed between optimistic and openly hostile. Residents voiced a range of concerns regarding the project for almost four hours.
Topics such as the impact on traffic and a guaranteed amount of local and minority participation were so fervent that a motion passed 5-1 to instruct City lawyers to see if the agreement could be amended to include provisions for a traffic study and local and minority involvement.
Mayor Rex Hardin said “I hear you, we hear you, we take it seriously.” Going on to say “we need to move forward, but we need to stay engaged, and we will tweak this thing; we will make it better.”
“This is a work in progress. This is going to be great for our City, great for the Northwest. It is going to build generational wealth. It is going to create opportunities for folks that have not had opportunities in our Northwest and in the City of Pompano forever. And it’s time that we moved forward.”
The development is expected to take a decade to complete. RocaPoint Partners are bound by the agreement to give quarterly progress reports to the City Commission and CRA along with semi-annual community outreach meetings.
RocaPoint Partners, as the Master Developer, is responsible for designing, permitting and constructing the civic buildings as well as the infrastructure for the development. They’re also responsible for acquiring any additional parcels and eventually marketing and selling any parcels of land deemed for non-government use. They expect to acquire property all the way through 2026.
The new City Hall is expected to break ground in 2025 and reach occupancy by 2028. Private occupancy is expected to start in 2029. Private land sales and construction are the final part of the development and should stretch well into the 2030s.
