High-rise with workforce housing could come to Hollywood Beach. Some don’t want it

The Hollywood Beach Broadwalk is lined with local eateries, quaint apartments and boutique hotels, some whose buildings have been around since the 1930s. The sweltering July heat beams down on visitors, some who are attracted to the city’s calm and beautiful beach views.

But some locals say the cutesy feel of Hollywood could change if developers behind a 18-story mixed-use development are allowed to build under Florida’s Live Local Act. If approved, the tower would be the second tallest building north of Hollywood Boulevard after Margaritaville Hollywood Beach Resort.

“It’s a very big building and we’re living on a barrier island,” said Hollywood resident Linda Montanari. “I don’t think that all of the infrastructure here is good enough for that kind of structure.”

New York-based developers Condra Property Group discussed the project at the city’s Technical Advisory Committee meeting on July 1 for a 18-story property that would include some commercial development, workforce housing with units priced to be affordable for people making 120% of the area median income, and a separate building that will include a three-story beach club with a pool on the roof. The area median income for Broward County is $88,500, according to the latest data. The average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Hollywood is $2,285, according to Apartments.com.

The developers purchased 11 buildings between Oklahoma and Nebraska streets between Ocean Drive and the broadwalk with the initial vision of building new, luxury hospitality and hotels. Mark Drachman, one of the co-founders and principals for Condra Property Group said the initial anti-development sentiment they received from residents quelled that idea, but the Live Local Act reopened the possibility to build and provide more.

“In Hollywood Beach, we run a large hospitality organization where a lot of workers that are not able to afford to live in places that we work,” Drachman said. “It’s going to bring jobs and a lot more opportunity for those in the area.”

Right now, all of the city’s committee members have not signed off on the plan, spokesperson Joann Hussey said in an email to the Miami Herald. The city’s division of planning and urban design is also still reviewing the application to determine if it meets the requirements of Live Local.

“There is no time frame for sign offs yet, but once they do this item could move forward to permitting pretty quickly,” Hussey said in a July 16 email to the Miami Herald.

Florida lawmakers passed the Live Local Act in 2023 with the intention of increasing workforce housing across the state, but local officials and residents have criticized the bill as a way for developers to bypass local planning laws and build taller buildings that ruin the character of cities. Hollywood’s top elected official said he’s willing go to court over the Live Local Act, if that’s what it takes.

Hollywood Mayor Josh Levy said the act limits projects to the height allowable within a surrounding mile, and in the case of central Hollywood Beach, the height allowed by the city’s zoning in a surrounding mile is 65 feet or 6 stories. Margaritaville was built before the existing zoning was written.

“There is no opportunity for live local applications on Hollywood beach that wish to exceed the allowable height by zoning,” Levy told the Herald. “If they want to look for recourse in the courts, the city would be happy to present its zoning code to a judge and the plan together with the plain language of Live Local Act. We have no doubt that the courts would agree with the plain meaning of the law and our code and uphold Hollywood’s height limits for Hollywood beach.”

Drachman and his partner Allen Konstam, who have been buying multiple properties in the area since 2008, acknowledged the concerns people have about developers building with the Live Local Act, but said that the taller development would be along the A1A and not the broadwalk.

“You won’t feel this overpowering structure throughout the entire street,” Konstam said. “We put a lot of thought and consideration into the design of the building, based on the fact that people don’t want to feel like it’s dark and there’s no sunlight coming in. People want to be able to walk down a street and look up and see the sky.”

Residents and visitors were mixed about the development, which some said would take away the idyllic views and ruin the quaintness of the relatively low-rise beach community.

“I think it would be great because it’s always nice to have more rooms and stuff that are available,” said Beth Head, a visitor to Hollywood Beach. “But I also kind of like the quaintness of this place. If you’re walking down the street, you can see the ocean. And I like the fact that it’s not so overcrowded.”

The new development would also sit near longtime businesses, such as Golden Sea Apartments, whose customer base is primarily senior citizens and Canadian residents. Owner of the apartment complex Rosary Andreen said if the building is built, her property will practically sit in the shadows of the tower.

“This is my home. This is my business. This is everything to me,” she said. “I just feel like I’m completely enclosed. I’m just very upset.”

Catherine Uden, Hollywood mayoral candidate and one of the few residents who spoke during the committee meeting, said she’s concerned about how overdevelopment of the barrier island will affect residents and traffic on a flood-prone street.

“My issue is mainly life safety and the whole kind of irresponsibility of building large projects on the barrier island,” she told the Herald “So it’s not necessarily particular to this project, it’s any tall, high density project. We have a very narrow, low lying barrier island.”

Uden said while she’s worked to stop “very tall large scale development,” she isn’t against workforce housing. “We need it in South Florida,” she said, “Just put it in a responsible, appropriate place with roads that can actually handle it, roads that aren’t underwater.”

Clive Taylor, president of the Hollywood Historical Society, said the buildings that would be torn down were built in the 1930s by architects that sought to mimic “the South Beach look” with the art deco design.

“When you look at all of Southeast Florida, to have that special broadwalk in place with the low rise historic hotels, (it) doesn’t exist anywhere else,” Taylor said. “People from (Miami-)Dade County regularly drive up to Broward to go to our beach. Everybody goes to the broadwalk because they love that type of feel and we could lose that.”

Konstam said the buildings are battered by the storms and will need to come down eventually.

“These buildings need to be taken down and need to be repaired,” he said. “The only way that any of this makes sense is to build a building that can withstand the conditions and bring in the money needed to generate it and make it a viable property. It’s only a matter of time before they’re in full disrepair.”

Should the developers be denied, both men said they will pursue their legal options.

Head, who was staying at the Neptune Hollywood Beach Hotel, seemed hopeful that if the development were built, that residents who needed it would be able to afford to live on the beach.

Terri Lear, who was staying at the Neptune Hollywood Beach Hotel with Head and their friend Cindy Edelen, said she visited the beach last year with Edelen and liked the “homey atmosphere” of the beach.

“Last year, we booked this room and we thought well, for this price, there’s no way it’s going to be anything good,” she said. “But when we got here, we loved it [and] we said we’re coming back next year. If they have a big high-rise, I imagine that’s going to increase prices up and down the boardwalk, too, and we like it just the way it is.”

She also worried about the tower potentially displacing mom-and-pops or businesses such as that of Andreen’s Golden Sea Apartments.

“Whether they want to be out or not, it could force all these other little places that we are so quaint and nice to be gone,” she said.