Imagine the streets of downtown Fort Lauderdale flowing with raw sewage.
That’s what happens when a sewage lift station fails. And the lift station now serving Flagler Village could very well fail if a new one needed to keep pace with the next development boom does not get built, city officials say.
But where to put it?
City commissioners are now wrangling over that very question, wondering whether a new park being planned for the heart of downtown’s trendy Flagler Village is really the best spot.
The $11.5 million lift station is needed to serve a slew of high-rise towers in the pipeline — and the thousands of toilets that come with them.
Here’s what’s on the way: Ten projects have been approved and are waiting to break ground. Four more are under construction. And two are under review.
The lift station also would serve the new City Hall tower expected to open in 2029 and the new commission chambers coming in 2028.
Altogether, the new construction will add 7,913 residences, 375 hotel rooms and more than 200,000 square feet of commercial space to downtown.
The new lift station would help shoulder the job of pumping sewage through a pressurized force main to the G.T. Lohmeyer Wastewater Treatment Plant at 1765 SE 18th St.
To get it designed and built will take up to three years.
Finding the best spot for it won’t be easy.
Fort Lauderdale’s skyline, shown Monday, continues to grow. And underground infrastructure, including a large new sewage lift station, is needed to accommodate all those new towers and toilets. (Carline Jean/South Florida Sun Sentinel)
In January, Mayor Dean Trantalis said he was blindsided when told the city planned to build a large new lift station on land set to become a new downtown park in the heart of Flagler Village.
The city-owned land, vacant since 2019, once housed the One Stop Shop development permitting office in the 300 block of North Andrews Avenue.
The lift station, also known as a sewage pumping station, would have an above-ground footprint as large as 50 feet by 50 feet, making it somewhat hard to hide.
Eight smaller lift stations sit in seven city parks throughout Fort Lauderdale.
Tiny Peter Feldman Park in Flagler Village has a lift station that’s hard to miss at 30 feet by 50 feet. The new lift station would be much bigger, at 50 feet by 50 feet.
Lift stations also have been built in Holiday Park, George English Park, Mills Pond Park, Flamingo Park, Croissant Park and Snyder Park, where there are two.
City staff has since come up with a total of four options, with the One Stop Shop future park site at the top of the list. The others include the site of the new City Hall; the City Hall garage next door; and a privately-owned site where the city runs a community court for the homeless.
The city will need to reroute sewer line connections from Broward Boulevard to the new lift station. The work would cost $2.1 million for both the City Hall and City Hall garage sites; $1.3 million for the One Stop Shop future park site; and $700,000 for the community court site. The farther away from Broward Boulevard, the higher the cost.
An aerial view of city-owned land slated for a park in the 300 block of North Andrews Avenue in downtown Fort Lauderdale. Fort Lauderdale is considering building a huge sewage lift station in the park. (Joe Cavaretta/South Florida Sun Sentinel)
Commissioners gave their feedback on all four options during a recent public meeting.
The City Hall site won’t do because there is no room for a lift station, the commission agreed.
“There isn’t a huge area that we can allow for a 50-by-50-foot block,” Trantalis said. “The footprint of the new City Hall and the chambers is going to take up most of the area as well as the plaza.”
The sewage lift station at Peter Feldman Park, shown on Jan. 15 in downtown Fort Lauderdale, sits in a prominent section of the small 1.3-acre park at 310 NE Sixth St. (Susannah Bryan/South Florida Sun Sentinel)
Vice Mayor John Herbst suggested the lift station go in the current City Hall garage, even if it requires knocking down part of the second floor.
“People park there once in the morning and they may go out to lunch,” Herbst said. “But other than that, they’re not going to see it or walk past it again until the end of the day. The least visible place you could possibly put it is in the City Hall garage. I know there are some engineering challenges, but nothing that can’t be overcome. That would be my recommendation.”
The ground floor of the garage has a vertical clearance of 16 feet — not high enough to allow for maintenance of the lift station. A section of the second floor would need to be removed to fix that problem.
Trantalis argued that retrofitting the garage could compromise its stability.
“We would compromise the whole structure by trying to break through the second floor,” Trantalis said. “I’m just trying to think outside the box here, knowing that the further south we go the better.”
Trantalis suggested the community court site might work, but the city doesn’t own the land. When Fort Lauderdale looked into buying the site in 2024, the land had an appraised value of $2.5 million. The property owner wanted $3 million.
Herbst gave the idea a thumbs down.
“I would be opposed to spending several million dollars on a building simply to just tear it down to build a lift station,” he said.
The mayor then suggested the new lift station might be a better fit at the county-owned main bus terminal on Broward Boulevard.
The closer to Broward Boulevard the better, because that’s where the main sewage flow would be coming from, Trantalis noted.
“That’s ground zero of where it should be,” he said.
Trantalis suggested city staff reach out to county officials to see if they’d be willing to work out a deal.
“I wonder if we could talk to the county to use some of the bus station,” he said. “It has 20-foot ceilings. And they don’t use the whole bus station. It’s just another option. And it certainly would accommodate their new government center better. We have to really think of all options.”
The county’s main bus terminal, shown Monday along Broward Boulevard, would make a great site for a large sewage lift station needed to accommodate more towers downtown, says Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis. (Carline Jean/South Florida Sun Sentinel)
Fort Lauderdale’s Downtown Development Authority, currently in talks with the city about developing the new park, is offering to help find alternative options.
Stephanie Toothaker, chair of the Fort Lauderdale Downtown Development Authority, sent an email to commissioners on March 18 on behalf of the board of directors saying they were ready and willing to help find a better site for the lift station.
“Of the four options provided to you, it appears the One Stop Shop site is presented as the preferred location,” Toothaker said. “Recently members of the City Commission have expressed a desire for the DDA to lead planning efforts to redevelop the One Stop Shop site as a new urban park. If that is the consensus of the Commission, we believe it would be premature for you to choose the One Stop Shop site for the new pump station until we have had an opportunity to conduct community engagement and initiate preliminary conceptual planning for the site and park.”
Toothaker added: “In addition, we believe that there may be more options to locate the new lift station on other sites that are not included in the staff presentation. DDA Board members are uniquely positioned to suggest additional alternative options in coordination with private property owners.”
Jenni Morejon, president and CEO of the Downtown Development Authority, made a persuasive plea during the commission meeting.
“I think the DDA board was a bit caught off-guard as an entity seeing the four options … knowing that some market trends have changed and there are some unique new opportunities,” she told the commission. “I have received input from at least four different board members who said we would love to sit down with staff to look at alternative options to make sure that the best option for the long run is presented.
“There may be some properties that are barely even shown on this map that are still within the (sewer) basin.”
City Manager Rickelle Williams said she and her staff would prioritize meeting with the DDA board.
“I know this has been a conversation for a number of years, so we welcome ideas,” Williams said. “We want to make sure the project can move forward expeditiously and in a very economic fashion. If there are private property owners that have recommendations or there are sites that we should consider, I want to keep all the considerations in mind.”
After the meeting, Trantalis said he was still hoping to keep the lift station out of the new park.
“It doesn’t belong there,” he said. “I realize we have to make a decision on the location soon, but some of the suggestions staff made didn’t make any sense. The garage makes no sense either. We will find a place for it.”
Susannah Bryan can be reached at sbryan@sunsentinel.com. Follow me on X @Susannah_Bryan