Learning from Fort Lauderdale

[Metro Jacksonville]

Learning from Fort Lauderdale



Known as the 'Venice of America', Fort Lauderdale serves as the major urban core area for Florida's second largest County.

Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/content/view/776

[reednavy]

I love this city, its very classy and the airport is very nice to fly into. I plan on headin down there this month for a weekend.

I just don't dig the ugly Las Olas River House Condominiums, yuck!

[Jason]

What do these images of Downtown Fort Lauderdale say to you?  What are some successes and failures in these images that should be embraced or avoided locally?

I fell in love with Fort Lauderdale when I first visited a few years back.  The core is clean, well landscaped, and festive.  The other thing I noticed right off the bat was the tunnel under the New River on US1.  Goes to show that they cherish their river and understand the importance of keeping the vista clear for boaters.  I understand the New River is only a few hundred feet across but Jax could learn from them by looking into the future of our bridges and considering tunnels to replace or supplement when the time comes to keep the river more clear for shipping and boating.  We could also use some more shade trees (not palms) along the riverfront and more of the city streets.

The other thing I noticed was the many canals lined with homes and boats.  Jax could do something very similar with some work on Hogan and McCoy's creeks.  Wouldn't take much to dredge and clean them up and then promote residential infill along their banks.  Perhaps tunnels would be in order along major cross streets (Riverside Ave and Bay Street) to open up these tributaries to boaters.

But all in all, the major advantage Fort Lauderdale has over Jax is tourism.  If we can figure out ways to entice more visitors to come to Jax then the rest would take care of itself.

[heights unknown]

These photos say to me, "great success and prosperity during the late 90's and into the new millenium."

I moved to Fort Lauderdale in 1995 a year after retiring from the U.S. Navy in Jacksonville.  Of course "Big Jax" was super sleepy during that time and I was offered a job in FTL and moved there in Sep 95.

When I moved there the City, as a whole, was vibrant and alive, much more so than Jax and I decided to not move back to Jax and make it my home.  However, many of the skyscrapers you see did not exist when I moved there in 95, and downtown itself, excluding Las Olas was tired and sleepy to say the least.

The AutoNation (110 Building) was the tallest at the time (410 feet), followed by the old Bank of America building, and there were 3 or 4 buildings in the 195 to 250 feet range, and that was it.  There was barely a skyline and a huge gap or hole existed in the skyline. Downtown at that time, including Las Olas, was alive but still sleepy after a certain time at night.

The year 2000 was the year all hell started to break loose in Fort Lauderdale.  Construction just took off, soared, and went totally off the chain.  By the time I left in August 2004, Fort Lauderdale had surpassed St. Petersburg, Orlando, and was hunching Jax for skyline honors.  In addition, downtown, along with Las Olas, began to harbor intense retail, business, and sidewalk restaurants and cafes; the result is a vibrant, alive downtown along with the Las Olas Entertainment district.

In reference to the skyline, the result (utilize the search engines for a full skyline view), is a skyline that has beaten Orlando and St. Petersburg, and the only thing that keeps FTL from beating Jax is our five talls that are over 430 feet tall (BOA, MODIS, WACHOVIA, AT&T, & PENINSULA).  FTL has several towers, both in the City Core downtown and the surrounding areas that hover in the 300 to 450 feet range.

However, I love my Jax and it's skyline and am rooting for Jax hard!  It's not a skyline race, but let's face it, we all like density and tallness in our City Cores!

Heights Unknown

[ubben]

Ft. Lauderdale definitely has a good vibe. I think for years the religious fundamentalists have strangled out of Jacksonville  much of the fun and life and diversity that make a place a real city. At least, that was the case for a long time. I've recently been back to Jax and got a good sense that that is much less the case. The Riverside area in particular seemed vibrant and interesting--very much on the cusp of being an awesome neighborhood. Jacksonville should embrace its gay and lesbian citizens, its funkiness, its history. It could soon be as much a destination as Ft. Lauderdale or Miami. Even more so.

[heights unknown]

Ft. Lauderdale definitely has a good vibe. I think for years the religious fundamentalists have strangled out of Jacksonville  much of the fun and life and diversity that make a place a real city. At least, that was the case for a long time. I've recently been back to Jax and got a good sense that that is much less the case. The Riverside area in particular seemed vibrant and interesting--very much on the cusp of being an awesome neighborhood. Jacksonville should embrace its gay and lesbian citizens, its funkiness, its history. It could soon be as much a destination as Ft. Lauderdale or Miami. Even more so.

I agree; people are clamoring and searching for Cities that are "best kept secrets," and Jax has become one of those.  And when people find out the word gets around.

Heights Unknown

[rjp2008]

There's only one lesson to learn from FTL - develop the Beaches area. That's why it's so big. Give people (clean!) places to go and have fun and retail at the beaches. I'm kinda surprised how run down some of Jax beaches area is.

[AaroniusLives]

Fort Lauderdale's rebirth was actually a multi-year plan by the city and county government. The first part of their vision was to replace the "Spring Break" image of the city in the minds of tourists with one of "upscale, relaxed destination." If you shopped at Nordstrom, you'd visit Fort Lauderdale.

The next portion of their vision tied into a regional plan called "Eastward Ho." Eastward Ho is an ongoing attempt to capture at least 25% of development in the tri-county area. This ideal was refined to add "residential" to it's vision, and much of the development that you see down US1, from Jupiter to Kendall, is the result of Eastward Ho.

However, what those photographs are capturing are images from the post take-off phase of downtown Fort Lauderdale development. The initial stages of the turn-around in the Broward County core consisted mainly of redevelopment, of awakening the potential of streets such as Las Olas Boulevard, and the emergence of historic districts like Victoria Park. As Fort Lauderdale became less of a "secret" and more of a "happening," newer construction began to fill in the blanks.

In general, Broward County is a well-run place, so it's unsurprising to me that their pragmatic nature delivered an appropriate downtown for both the city, the county, and the metropolitan statistical area. This, despite not being a consolidated form of government.