BTI Partners won site plan approval and a rezoning for Block 57, a two-tower, mixed-use development in downtown Hollywood with 856 planned apartments.
The Hollywood City Commission granted the approvals Wednesday amid concern about future traffic patterns around the 3.2-acre development site on Young Circle.
Along with 856 apartments, Block 57 will have about 142,000 square feet of retail space, about 40,000 square feet of office space, and just under 1,600 parking spaces.
Fort Lauderdale-based BTI paid $16 million in 2020 to acquire the Block 57 development site at 1701-1735 East Young Circle, which included a former Publix supermarket property.
BTI plans to extend Hollywood Boulevard through the Block 57 site, between the development’s two 35-story towers, directly to Young Circle. Hollywood Boulevard now curves around the development site before merging into Young Circle.
The Florida Department of Transportation [FDOT] developed a traffic plan to support an extension of Hollywood Boulevard through the middle of the Block 57 site.
City commissioners criticized elements of the FDOT plan, including how it would provide vehicular access to Block 57 from Harrison Street and from South 17th Avenue. Part of the plan would make Harrison a two-lane, one-way street eastbound, which both the city commission and the developer oppose.
BTI will work with the city to amend the FDOT plan, Noah Breakstone, managing partner and CEO of BTI, told commissioners at their meeting Wednesday. “We’ll continue to work with you on the roads,” he said. “We’d love to see two-way traffic [on Harrison Street].”
The city can still push for changes to the FDOT plan, which has not been finalized, Hollywood City Manager Wazir Ishmael told the commissioners. “I do believe that FDOT will listen to the commission. They’ve heard from our staff. They’ve heard from the applicant.”
Near the Block 57 site, BTI Partners has another downtown development underway, a 361-unit apartment project with 17,000 square feet of retail space on the 1.3-acre site of the former Hollywood Bread Building, which BTI demolished last year. BTI and its equity partner Bridge Investment Group acquired the Bread Building last year for about $11 million.
Preliminary site work at the former Bread Building location is nearly completed, Breakstone said at the city commission meeting. “We’re ready to get moving and go vertical,” he said.
Block 57 would be one of several high-rise developments in recent years along Young Circle, a road around a circular 10-acre downtown park where north-south traffic on U.S. 1 merges with east-west traffic on Hollywood Boulevard.
Early this year, a 19-story mixed-use development known as Block 40 opened on the southwest side of Young Circle. It is a 269-unit rental apartment building called 1818 Park on top of nearly 10,000 square feet of office and retail space.
Hollywood Circle, a 25-story mixed-use development that opened in 2018 on the northern side of Young Circle, has 386 rental apartments, a 111-room Circ by Sonder Hotel, and a 48,000-square-foot Publix grocery store.