Morgan Group won a land use change to develop 356 garden apartments on part of a shopping center in Pompano Beach, amid vacancies at the retail property.
Houston-based Morgan plans to demolish a former Macy’s store and parking lot on a 12.1-acre site along the west side of Pompano Citi Centre, a shopping center on the southwest corner of Copans Road and Federal Highway.
West Palm Beach-based Sterling Organization and Macy’s own the site within the shopping center, which is flanked on the south and west by the Pompano Beach Municipal Golf Course.
The development site represents about 20 percent of the Pompano City Centre property. The shopping center spans nearly 60 acres, according to Sterling Organization’s website.
At a meeting Tuesday, Pompano Beach commissioners approved on second reading a land use change for the site from “Commercial” to “Irregular 29.5 Residential,” which refers to the maximum number of residential units per acre.
The new land use designation also set aside 15 percent of the apartments, or 53 of them, for families whose income is no higher than 120 percent of the median in Broward County.
The Pompano Beach Planning and Zoning Board had recommended approval of the land use change at its meeting on Jan. 27, and the city commission approved the change on first reading Feb. 23.
“The Citi Centre is in need of redevelopment of existing vacant space,” according to a report by the staff of the planning and zoning board. “The proposed development will facilitate sustainable infill redevelopment … and provide additional patrons for the commercial uses in the area.”
Pompano Citi Centre was built as an enclosed mall in 1970. But a subsequent redesign of the shopping center isolated the former Macy’s department store from the rest of the shopping center. The store’s reduced visibility and online competition contributed to its closure, according to the staff report.
Operated as an open-air regional shopping center since 2006, Pompano Citi Centre has vacancies totaling about 150,000 square feet, or 31 percent of the leasable space, according to LoopNet. The shopping center’s tenants include JCPenney, Lowe’s, and T.J. Maxx. Sterling Organization acquired Pompano Citi Centre in 2012 for about $15 million.
Morgan Group has been active in Fort Lauderdale, just south of Pompano Beach. Last year, the company acquired a mobile home park for residential redevelopment and a church for mixed-use redevelopment.
In January 2020, a partnership of Morgan Group and JPMorgan sold Pearl Flagler Village, a 340-unit apartment building in the Flagler Village area north of downtown Fort Lauderdale, for $112 million.