Market voices: Commissioner’s

Heather Moraitis

Vice Mayor City of Fort Lauderdale

We have a tri-rail mobility hub coming to the district at Cypress Creek. The MPO will provide about $3 million of funding to connect that station to the area and local businesses. Construction should begin in 2022. Our executive airport is one of our economic drivers in the area and is located in an Enterprise Zone. This o ers a great transportation option and serves as a hub for our businesses in the area. The executive airport and all the surrounding tenants pay around $4 million in taxes each year, making it the city’s second-largest taxpayer. It just implemented a master plan with the goal to invest $55 million in the next 25 years.

One of our major concerns is sea level rise. We’re addressing the issue head-on through essential projects to tackle our vulnerability throughout the city. We are also continuously concerned about a ordable housing. To have positive growth and ensure businesses can find employees, we need to make sure that people can also a ord to live here, especially now with the crunch that we see and the skyrocketing of the median values of homes. That is going to be a major consideration. Steven Glassman

Commissioner City of Fort Lauderdale

Robert McKinzie

Commissioner City of Fort Lauderdale

We have championed numerous high-profile projects including the development of a new $15 million L.A. Lee YMCA/Mizell Center, Brics ‘N Stics – co-working space, Smitty’s Wings Restaurant, and construction of new single-family homes within the northwest corridor of the city. Further fostering community engagement, the city has hosted family-friendly special events and entertainment including a series of free concerts at Carter, Provident, and Riverland Parks.

In the middle of the urban core of Fort Lauderdale sits Stranahan House, which was the trading post for Fort Lauderdale at its inception. It’s now surrounded by Downtown growth and development. That is the juxtaposition we think of when thinking about growth. They can exist together and they can add to one another. That is the spirit behind the revitalization of other areas of the city such as Sistrunk. We can bring and celebrate the history and the importance of that community and build upon that by saying that is the foundation from which we will continue to move forward, emphasizing the racial equality that we are striving for, as well as fair policing and equal opportunity. Part of that is not just coming in and replacing, but lifting it all up. Broward College is providing awesome remote-learning opportunities in that area and lifting folks up. Ben Sorensen

Commissioner City of Fort Lauderdale

DRV PNK Stadium is an 18,000-seat stadium and serves as the home pitch of Inter Miami CF.

( ) In a statement accompanying the city’s budget presentation, City Manager Chris Lagerbloom said, “The ratings and opinions of Wall Street’s leading credit rating institutions signaled strong confidence in the financial management of the City of Fort Lauderdale. Our fiscal discipline and vigilance have been instrumental in building a strong financial foundation and positioning Fort Lauderdale for a bright future. This success does not happen by chance – it is the direct result of innovation, long term planning, hard work, and continuous process improvement.”

The COVID-19 impact The city has a total of $1.4 billion in community investment projected over the next five years. The city recently decided to reconsider the future of the parking garages next to the main library, which are underutilized and occupy prime real estate in the Downtown area. The city is also engaged in a new initiative with Miami, Broward County and Boca Raton to promote the Downtown area for the relocation of tech business as another step to the goal of further diversifying the economy.

To help the community financially, the city also launched various initiatives, including the COVID-19 rental assistance program and utility disconnections due to non-payment were suspended from March 13, 2020 across the city. Free business assistance was also rolled out across local companies with the South Florida Emergency Response Program, the SBA Economic Injury Loan program, and the Florida Short Time Compensation Program. A reemployment assistance program was also set up throughout the state to help those impacted by the pandemic.

In addressing the virus itself, the City of Fort Lauderdale rolled out multiple testing and vaccination sites, including providing free drive-through testing. The city first converted the COVID-19 testing site at Holiday Park to handle vaccinations and then moved it to Snyder Park so even more people could be accommodated. The city’s new DRV PNK Stadium at Lockhart Park also became a vaccine administration site.

By April 2021, the vaccine rollout was ramping up and many hotels, beaches and businesses had reopened for visitors, although safety measures, such as mask requirements and distancing, remained in place. These latest developments are providing optimism that the recovery from the pandemic could come sooner than expected.

“I’m incredibly proud of the way our city responded to COVID-19,” Mayor Trantalis said. “We took quick action early to stop the spread as we learned more about the best ways to slow transmission – often leading the region and nation in our decision-making. We then did our utmost to dampen the economic impact by developing the safest protocols possible for people to go about many of their daily activities. With our comprehensive vaccination effort, we hope to lead the way out of COVID as well.”