IMC Equity Group advanced plans to develop a three-building, mid-rise complex with 233 apartments on the south side of the Lauderhill Mall.
IMC Equity, led by President and CEO Yoram Izhak, successfully proposed a special-use exception to the mall’s commercial zoning designation to allow multifamily residential development on the south side of the mall.
IMC, a North Miami-based private equity firm, has a conceptual design for the mall’s southern side that includes an eight-story building and two five-story buildings with a total of 233 one- and two-bedroom apartments, plus a clubhouse and other amenities, and about 14,200 square feet of new commercial space.
A company controlled by IMC paid $17.8 million in 2012 to acquire the Lauderhill Mall at 1267 Northwest 12th Street in Lauderhill, according to state and county records.
The Lauderhill City Commission voted last week to approve the special-use exception that allows IMC to develop multifamily housing on the mall’s south side. With the special-use exception in hand, IMC is set to work with city staff to finalize its site plan for the three-building, mixed-use development at Lauderhill Mall, Hope Calhoun, an attorney for IMC, told the commission.
The three-parcel, 3.2-acre development site on the south side of the Lauderhill Mall is a surface parking lot along Northwest 12th Street with a 1960s-era commercial building at the corner of 12th Street and State Road 7.
“The applicant is proposing to renovate a portion of an underutilized parking lot and redevelop a single-story commercial use into three mixed-use buildings,” according to a memo to the Lauderhill City Commission from Daniel T. Keester-O’Mills, Lauderhill’s planning and zoning director.
IMC has tried other ways to drive traffic to the mall property. The Lauderhill Mall opened in 1966 with an original span of about 400,000 square feet, Keester-O’Mills reported in his memo. Under IMC’s ownership, a building on the west side of the mall has been adapted for a self-storage operator, and a building at the southeast corner of the property has been renovated for Joys Roti restaurant.
Among other conditions in a resolution approving the special-use exception, the Lauderhill City Commission ruled that the exception “cannot be conveyed to another person or entity. Any change of corporate ownership affecting 51 percent or more of the interest of the business or any of its assets in any manner shall trigger this provision.”
IMC unsuccessfully proposed deleting that condition from the resolution. “It inhibits development,” Calhoun contended at the commission meeting. “Oftentimes, you’ll have one entity develop or obtain the entitlements, and then another entity will do the construction. Or, you will have a case where a developer will get the entitlements, and then someone may offer to buy it, at a profit.”
Before commissioners voted to approve the special-use resolution with the non-conveyance condition, Lauderhill City Attorney Hans Ottinot said they could amend the condition in the future.