April 2008 Design Session

Session Summary

The Florida Public Officials Design Institute at Abacoa, dedicated to improving South Florida communities by offering training in smart growth and design, hosted its eleventh session in Jupiter, Florida, on April 24th and 25th, 2008. This session included the Town of Lake Park, City of Lauderdale Lakes, City of Margate and City of Miami.

The Design Institute program officially opened the first day with resource team members visiting the project sites selected by the public officials in Lake Park, Lauderdale Lakes , Margate and Miami . The public officials led tours of the sites while staff presented additional information and answered technical questions. Later that evening, Ed McMahon, Senior Fellow for Sustainable Development and Environmental Policy at the Urban Land Institute, delivered the keynote address titled "Sustainability: What Does It Mean and Why Is It Important?" at the Florida Atlantic University MacArthur Campus. Following his keynote address, Mr. McMahon stayed to answer numerous questions following his keynote address and joined the team of design experts the following day.

Ed McMahon of the Urban Land Institute delivers his keynote address

The second day of the Design Institute consisted of an all-day workshop during which the resource experts addressed the challenges of each project. All participants shared ideas and perspectives on the officials’ projects.

Lake Park Mayor Desca DuBois

Lake Park Mayor Desca DuBois brought the Park Avenue Downtown District study area to the Design Institute and sought input on how to overcome various obstacles when revitalizing the site. The Town was seeking a set of action steps that over time will return Park Avenue (the Town’s main street) to its roots: a traditional downtown setting with a village-type character that is a desirable place to visit, invest in and spend some time.

The Design Team focused specifically on what to do with the building side of the sidewalk, essentially basic action steps that will enhance the street-level experience and steps that could include those that can be taken now, with a weakened economy, and those that should wait until the economy improves. The design team recommended: adopting a plan and a vision that depicts the desired Park Avenue, creating a town square to serve as a community focal point, improving the appearance of Park Avenue by enforcing codes and addressing concerns about safety, activating public spaces by sponsoring regular outdoor events, securing signature tenants through retention of existing businesses , offering incentives to encourage improvements to some of the older buildings, and creating a transition between the downtown and adjoining single-family neighborhoods.

Lauderdale Lakes Deputy Vice Mayor Eric Haynes

Lauderdale Lakes Deputy Vice Mayor Eric Haynes presented the City’s Lauderdale Lakes Market Place project, a 32-acre site located at the southeast corner of State Road 7 and Oakland Park Boulevard . Today, the site contains three aging, 1960s era one-story strip commercial centers that are fronted by large expanses of parking lots and for the most part, house institutional and other non-retail uses. The City sought advice on how to replace an “Anywhere USA” low-density, commercial strip center with the City’s first-ever identifiable town center (the Lauderdale Lakes Market Place) that will contain a mix of residential, retail, office, civic, and open space uses.

During the work session, the design team recommended: moving ahead with adopting a form-based code that will enable a developer to build consistent with the master plan vision, creating distinguishing gateways at the main entrances to the City, requiring that all buildings be placed close to and front the street, with parking located behind them, ensuring that the core infrastructure, particularly the roads, will result in the desired form of development over time, develop in a phased approach so that it will be consistent with the intent of the master plan when completed, and considering the establishment of incentives to promote the desired form of development.

Margate Commissioner David McLean

Margate City Commissioner David McLean came to the Design Institute to seek input on how, in a down real estate market, to implement its plans to create a pedestrian-friendly and lively City Center through the redevelopment of the prime intersection of State Road 7 and Margate Boulevard. Margate ’s Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) owns the site for the proposed City Center . The CRA has assembled 32 acres: a 17-acre vacant parcel east of State Road 7 (the former Swap Shop) and 15 acres consisting of older shopping centers located west of State Road 7.

The design team recommended: using public funds to provide the infrastructure for the pods, identifying the developers who know the market and are willing to build according to the vision plan, offering a variety of financing tools that can be designed to fit a developer’s specific needs, focusing on early projects that create a track record of and celebrate early successes, and preparing a pattern book or developer’s handbook that clearly illustrates the desired type of development and outline what the City is willing to do to achieve it.

Miami Commissioner Marc Sarnoff

Miami’s City Commissioner Mark Sarnoff attended the Design Institute for advice on how the City should respond to a proposed zoning change, given its Comprehensive Plan goal to protect single-family neighborhoods, that would allow a large hotel to replace a lower-scale office building located on a difficult site in the middle of several very high-end residential neighborhoods in close proximity to the downtown. The site for the proposed hotel is the northern portion of a triangular piece of land that forms an island between South Miami Avenue to the west, South Dixie Highway/South Federal Highway to the southeast, Southeast 26 th Road (also known as Rickenbacker Causeway) to the northeast, and Brickell Avenue to the east. An I-95 on-ramp and South Bayshore Drive also intersect at the northern edge of the site.

During the Miami work session, the design team recommended: encouraging an architectural design that will create a gateway and even an iconic image while respecting the adjacent historic residential neighborhoods, working with site owners to make improvements that enhance the appearance of the public areas around what is a gateway site, maintaining building sizes and layouts that result in safe and efficient access, considering impacts on the surrounding lower-density and well-established neighborhoods around the site, and encouraging the applicant to incorporate the office building to the south to ensure a comprehensive planning approach for this very important site.

Eleventh Design Institute Session

For more information on the April 2008 Design Institute Session, please visit this website's Final Report Section located here.