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May 11, 2007

The Broward County city of Coconut Creek, with 12 square miles and a population of roughly 50,000, is about to join the ranks of some of the larger and more developed cities in the area.

With several major projects in the works in Coconut Creek’s MainStreet district, an area slated to become a New Urbanist mini-downtown, the city is poised to become a model for smart growth, said Sheila Rose, Coconut Creek’s director of development services. The new projects include a lifestyle center, an expansion of a Seminole Tribe casino and another large, mixed-use development.

With the MainStreet project, “We’re moving away from the suburban-urban model,” said Rose. Rather, the city - which adopted design guidelines for the district in December 2004 - is embracing an urban model, she said. “We are creating cities on a smaller scale, which are more livable.”

The Promenade at Lyons, a 23-acre lifestyle center being developed by New York/Philadelphia-based Brown Hill Development and retail partner Ohio-based Stanbery Development, will be on a portion of the largest undeveloped land parcel in Broward County at the corner of Lyons and Wiles Roads. Currently a tomato field, this section of the MainStreet district will be turned into an urban village with approximately 250,000sf of retail, up to 125,000sf of office space and as many as 450 residential units.

Construction is slated to begin on the open-air retail, restaurant and office components of The Promenade at Lyons in the summer of 2007. Retail tenants already lined up include Ann Taylor Loft, Banana Republic, Coldwater Creek, and Jos. A. Bank Clothiers. About 80% of the retail space has been leased so far, said Jeffrey Brown, chairman of Brown Hill Development.

“The city of Coconut Creek and Brown Hill Development have shared the same vision for this project from the start - to provide this growing community with an urban village where people can live, work, shop and play in an atmosphere that integrates and celebrates the environment,” said Brown.

“The city determined that in (the MainStreet) district, buildings would be LEED certified (by the U.S. Green Building Council), and we embraced that from the outset,” said Brown. “It is good for the earth, the tenants, for everybody.”

The LEED certification works on a credit system, said Brown. One way to get a credit toward LEED certification is to buy materials within 500 miles of the site. “If you do that, you cut down on transportation and energy costs,” he said. Another way to be energy efficient is to use dual-flush toilets, which use one amount of water for solid waste and another for liquid waste, a system which saves a lot of water, said Brown.

“This is our first LEED-certified project, and we expect to do more,” said Brown. “It may be the first, privately developed, mixed-use project in the whole state of Florida with LEED certification.”

A second project in the works in the MainStreet district is an extension of the Coconut Creek Seminole casino. The tribe has presented a preliminary proposal to the city to develop a 1,500-room hotel with an eight-story garage and ancillary retail on 44 acres that the tribe owns in the MainStreet district.

If approved, it would be the largest hotel-entertainment complex in the county, if not one of the largest in South Florida. But this is only one of a number of possible developments that could be developed on the Seminole land, said Gary Bitner, the Seminole Tribe of Florida spokesman.

For the Seminole project to come to fruition, a number of issues must first be resolved, including a way to deal with additional traffic congestion that would result from an expanded casino operation. Also at issue is which government entity would have jurisdiction over any new Seminole development.

The Seminoles have asked the Bureau of Indian Affairs to allow the 44 acres in the MainStreet district to be held in trust by the federal government, in which case the land would be considered sovereign. Regulatory authority would be transferred from the state, as well as the city and county, to the tribe. The current casino is located on 4.75 acres, which are already held in trust for the tribe and which are next to the 44 acres where the new development is planned.

If the Seminole tribe is able to develop its casino expansion without city, county or state approval, the city won’t lose any tax revenue because it already has an agreement with the tribe for it to pay for municipal services, said Bitner. The county, on the other hand, would lose tax money, but then it also wouldn’t be providing services to the Seminoles.

The Seminole Tribe is anxious to begin offering Class 3 gaming, otherwise known as Las Vegas-style slot-machine gaming, said Bitner. In 2004, Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment allowing Las Vegas style gambling based on local options at the county level, but just for Miami-Dade and Broward counties.

Although Miami-Dade turned down the option, Broward County voters approved slot machines in 2005, clearing the way for Class 3 gambling at four pari-mutual facilities in the county. Before the vote, these four operations only had Class 2, bingo-style machines.

Once slot machines are legal in Florida, tribes should also have the right to have them, said Bitner. The federal law is clear, he said, and the tribe is expected to be begin negotiating soon with the new governor, Charlie Crist, to work out an agreement, or compact, on Las Vegas-type gambling procedures, he said.

While the Seminoles are making plans for a bigger, more spectacular casino, a smaller, less complicated, expansion of the Coconut Creek Seminole casino, which includes a restaurant and lounge, attached to the original building, is scheduled to open sometime in April.

“It gives the whole place a look which is high-quality and exciting,” said Bitner. This expansion consists of the 6,000sf Fresh Harvest restaurant, the 3,000sf Nectar Lounge and 13,000sf of gaming space.

A third project, The Village of Marbella, is planned as a mixed-use development with up to 750 residential units, 150 hotel rooms and as many as 300,000sf of office space, although some of that square footage may instead become a multi-story car dealership.

The land is owned by Vista Motors, which was also the applicant on a rezoning request for the property, said Rose. The rezoning was completed within the last few months, she said. The next step in the process is for the developers to apply for site plan approval. There is as yet no timetable for that to happen, said Rose.

Article From Florida Real Estate Journal