A developer wants to knock down the retail building housing Crown Wine & Spirits on Cordova Road in Fort Lauderdale and replace it with three towers holding 765 apartments, using a state law that lets the project skip public hearings entirely. The plan, dubbed Terrasse, would rise on a 3.05-acre site at 1645 Cordova Road, just south of the New River in the Harbordale neighborhood near Port Everglades.
According to Florida YIMBY, which first reported the proposal, the development would include two 36-story towers and one 19-story tower, offering a mix of 459 market-rate apartments and 306 workforce housing units. The market-rate side would span studio, one-bedroom, three-bedroom and four-bedroom floorplans, while the workforce units are limited to studios and one-bedrooms. The site currently holds an 8,147-square-foot commercial building constructed in 1960 that last sold for $2.1 million in October 2013, according to Movoto.
That building is currently home to Crown Wine & Spirits, a beverage retailer that serves both local residents and South Florida’s marine industry along the Cordova Road corridor, per the Superyacht Services Guide. The property is owned by W D Cordova LLC, an active Florida limited liability company whose principal office sits just down the street at 1845 Cordova Road, Suite 215, and which has maintained active registration since 2006, records show.
How the Live Local Act Clears the Path
W D Cordova LLC intends to qualify for benefits under Florida’s Live Local Act, the same statute that has reshaped development ambitions elsewhere in the city. Under the law, also known as SB 102, local governments must administratively approve qualifying residential projects on commercial or industrial land without public hearings or rezoning, provided at least 40% of units are set aside as affordable for households earning up to 120% of Area Median Income for 30 years, according to the Florida Housing Coalition. Terrasse reserves exactly 40% of its units as workforce housing, the threshold needed to trigger those protections…