Hollywood residents fear developers, city won’t stop at one 30-story tower on public beach

By Noreen Marcus, FloridaBulldog.org

Will a developer with a $50 billion portfolio put a 30-story condo tower on public oceanfront land in Hollywood? Will even more construction on the beach, one of the city’s greatest assets, turn it into an overbuilt Fort Lauderdale South?

The answers are complicated by local politics, a public outcry and a strange, fatal error in a Nov. 5 ballot measure. After that blunder the city attorney resigned and a repeat vote was scheduled for 2026.

Until then, city commissioners, most of whom want the tower, claim they’ll honor the spirit of the ballot measure – meaning that Hollywood residents and not the commissioners have the power to approve or veto future proposals for beach development.

Hollywood Mayor Josh Levy, a champion of the condo project as an engine of economic growth, has taken an adversarial position toward opponents. He called them “slanted advocates” who “riled up [other residents’] emotions” at a March 2022 commission meeting. Levy did not respond to an email from Florida Bulldog seeking comment.

So it makes sense for Hollywood residents to be skeptical about politicians’ promises to honor their wishes. The notion of the public deciding how public property should be used hasn’t caught on in a meaningful way in Broward County’s third-largest city.

Here’s one undeniable fact: A deal reached in the Spring of 2022 between the city commission and the giant developer, Related Group, would allow it to build the Hollywood Arts Residences at 1301 S. Ocean Drive – provided the Broward County Commission adds a second stamp of approval. Whenever that happens and construction begins, the $138 million development will be completed in about two years, according to details reported in The Real Deal.

The average price for one of the tower’s 300 units will be just under $1 million. Miami-based business titan Jorge Perez’s Related Group has committed to spending $10 million on public facilities including a two-story community center, a park, sand dune restoration and a path to the Hollywood Beach Broadwalk, the website reported.

Under a 99-year lease, the developer will pay $400,000 a year for rent, plus a slice of condo sales and 30 percent of rental payments from a restaurant that Related will build inside the community center and lease out. The developer promised Hollywood a $5 million contract-signing bonus, The Real Deal said.

PROJECT ‘DOESN’T BODE WELL’

“This doesn’t bode well for the future of the city,” said resident Steve Werthman, an opponent of the beach project. Erecting the massive tower on a barrier island prone to flooding violates the city’s master land-use plan, he said.

“For me it’s kind of a line in the sand,” said Werthman, who lives in east Hollywood near the site. “If the city commission can override the master land-use plan for any parcel it wants, then anything is fair game.”

Richard Grosso, a Plantation lawyer who represents Broward’s Sierra Club chapter, criticized Hollywood officials for approving the project.

“It’s an absurd idea that in 2024 should not be happening,” he said. “It’s as if sea level rise and hurricane evacuation concerns didn’t exist.” Grosso called the city’s turning over beachfront property to a developer “a head-scratcher, the absolute opposite of what responsible local government on the beach ought to be doing these days.”

For years a group of Hollywood residents has fought the project in every conceivable way. As of last week Change.org claimed verified signatures of 6,627 opponents. They’ve gone to the media, made impassioned statements at city commission meetings, and campaigned for local office on the “1301” issue.

“Some things are worth more than money and our public green spaces are important to us,” resident Catherine “Cat” Uden said at a 2021 commission meeting when the Related Group first presented its proposal.

“We can’t just go sticking a private highrise in every green space,” she said. Uden was one of three candidates on the Nov. 5 ballot who challenged Mayor Levy in his reelection bid and lost.

BOTCHED BALLOT MEASURE

Also on the Nov. 5 ballot was a charter amendment question based on Hollywood residents’ demand to control building on publicly owned shoreline property. It was one of six questions, but the other five were technical housekeeping fixes, Werthman said.

Question Number 6 says:

“These amendments amend Article XIII of the Charter entitled “Limitations on Sale, Lease or Purchase of City-Owned Real Property” by clarifying applicability to property east of the Intracoastal and city-owned historic designated properties; removing referendum option for the sale or lease of certain city-owned property for a period in excess of 20 years; requiring a 5/7ths vote of the commission for lease of certain city-owned properties in excess of 50 years. Should Article XIII of the Charter entitled “Limitations on Sale, Lease or Purchase of City-Owned Real Property be amended in the various ways described above?”

Obviously, that’s not what a charter review committee intended. The voter “referendum option” wasn’t supposed to be removed; the “5/7ths vote of the commission” requirement should have been deleted.

Hollywood officials explained that the City Attorney’s office writes ballot measures and gives them to the Supervisor of Elections’ office for publication. Somehow no one noticed Number 6 was defective before everyone saw the sample ballot.

At that point the city declared Number 6 null and void. Votes cast for and against the measure were thrown out; the redo is planned for 2026.

No one accuses Douglas Gonzales, Hollywood’s city attorney since 2017, of sabotaging the ballot measure. Still, he resigned immediately and apparently gave up a reported $261,500 salary effective Dec. 31, 2024. Florida Bulldog could not reach Gonzales for comment.

IS TOWER A DONE DEAL?

Werthman, the beach tower opponent, said he doesn’t know if the glitches were “intentional or incompetence” or who’s responsible but he wonders what happened. “This was the most important amendment, and for it to be screwed up so much that it was pulled from the ballot raises my suspicion.”

“City leadership was all for the 1301 project as proposed, so, yes, there’s clearly a divide between what the voters want and what the elected officials want,” he said.

Is the beach tower a done deal? Hollywood Commissioner Caryl Shuham, who voted against it, told her constituents that Related Group has a Jan. 22, 2025, deadline to obtain required entitlements.

“To date, [city] staff has not reported any activity by the developer to meet this deadline, but we will have to wait and see if the contract expires or not,” Shuham wrote in a newsletter.

Both the city’s and Broward County’s planning boards must sign off on the project, followed by the Broward County Commission. The city agency recommended rejecting it; before the county planning council could act, Related pulled its application. The company must follow through with a refiled application by Jan. 22.

Broward County Mayor Beam Furr, a Sierra Club honoree for his environmental activism, has not revealed where he stands on the Hollywood beach project. His spokesperson passed along a “no comment” to Florida Bulldog.

If and when the project gets to the Broward County Commission for a hearing, Grosso, the Sierra Club lawyer, plans to voice “strong opposition.”

“We’re happy it’s not on the agenda right now,” he said. “We’re hoping it never comes back.”