The new Fort Lauderdale City Hall would be a sexy landmark, curvy and futuristic — nothing like the boxy old gray bunker taken out by the flood of April 2023.
On Tuesday night, commissioners ranked four development teams vying to build the new City Hall. One activist referred to the competition as a beauty contest. In the end, the team with the most head-turning design snared the top ranking.
The rankings, from first to last: FTL City Hall Partners, Balfour Beatty, Fort Lauderdale Civic Partners and FTL Beacon Collaborative.
“I looked at all the designs and clearly the one that stands out is the FTL City Hall Partners,” Mayor Dean Trantalis said. “Let’s do something that’s going to last through the ages, something that we can be identified with and that people will respect and say, ‘Wow, look what Fort Lauderdale has done.’ It sets the tone for what future development should look like in Fort Lauderdale.”
The top-ranked team includes CORE Construction, Stiles Corp., Plenary Americas U.S. Holdings, PGAL and the PALMA architectural firm.
Jo Palma, the founder of PALMA, explained how the team came up with the idea for the iconic design.
“With Fort Lauderdale’s history in yachting and boating, I always thought, wouldn’t it be wonderful if you took the shape of the hull of a boat and you made it the symbol of the city,” he said on a video played for the commission. “So this form is really like you took a boat and you just put it vertically to the sky. This eye of the needle is actually opening itself, welcoming in the public, the community to the City Hall.”
Under the timeline projected by the top-ranked team, the City Tall tower would open by May 2029. The parking garage (a six-level, open-air parking podium designed to accommodate 1,000 vehicles) and a separate building for the commission chambers would open by May 2028.
The project’s estimated price tag of $344.3 million was the highest of all four contenders.
The cost included $291.8 million in direct costs, $22.5 million in indirect costs, $13.3 million in overhead and administrative costs, and $16.6 million in contingency.
Trantalis argued the city could get the price down by shrinking the size of the building from 295,000 square feet to 250,000 square feet.
“I know it’s more expensive, but I think we can work to get the price down because we’re going to shrink the size of the necessary square footage,” he said before the vote.
Inspired by a nautical design, the new Fort Lauderdale City Hall would resemble the shape of a boat hull turned vertically toward the sky. (PALMA, courtesy)
Commissioners Ben Sorensen, Pamela Beasley-Pittman and Steve Glassman joined the mayor in approving the rankings.
Sorensen asked for feedback from consultant Jonathan Jordon, a project executive with Jacobs Project Management Co., a firm hired by the city to help winnow the list of contenders.
“I thought they were all very good presentations,” Jordon said. “I thought they were all more similar than they were apart, with the exception of the design. Certainly we saw some designs that really stood out. And that may be where you might want to put some weight because some designs just appeared to be, in my opinion, sexier than other designs.”
Vice Mayor John Herbst cast the lone dissenting vote, saying he preferred building a smaller ceremonial City Hall downtown and sending most City Hall staffers to work out of a privately-owned office building at 1515 W. Cypress Creek Road in northern Fort Lauderdale.
Before the vote, three residents shared their thoughts on how the city should proceed. Two urged the commission to delay their vote to allow time for more public comment.
“This is essentially a beauty contest,” said Marilyn Mammano, president of the Harbordale Civic Association. “Any one of these proposers will build you an office building with a City Hall component on a nice plaza with or without a garage. They will all do whatever you tell them to do.”
Mammano urged the commission to delay their vote to give more residents time to weigh in.
Mary Fertig, another longtime community activist, suggested the commission wait until early next year to make a decision.
The old Fort Lauderdale City Hall, shown on April 19, 2023, is no longer standing. The 1960s-era building was declared a total loss after being deluged by floodwaters from a historic rainstorm on April 12, 2023. (Joe Cavaretta/South Florida Sun Sentinel)
Trantalis argued the city was ready to move forward, noting many of the details of each plan were released to the public in early October.
“What we saw today to me was a rerun,” he said. “We didn’t just dump this on the public at the 11th hour on a holiday weekend. For God’s sake, it’s been two-and-a-half years since we lost our City Hall. We should be able to make decisions more quickly than we have been.”
The old City Hall was damaged beyond repair during a historic rainstorm in April 2023 that flooded the basement of the eight-story building.
Built in the 1960s, it stood its ground for decades at 100 N. Andrews Ave. until floodwaters breached its basement more than two years ago, sealing its fate.
The building was demolished last year. The new City Hall would rise in its place.
Glassman said it was a tough choice that would in the end leave Fort Lauderdale with a legacy project that would last through the ages.
“We will be setting the budget,” Glassman said. “We will be setting the parameters. We will be talking about design. We’re building something not just for today but for the future – for something that will be here after we’re gone.”
Susannah Bryan can be reached at sbryan@sunsentinel.com. Follow me on X @Susannah_ Bryan