Waypoint Residential advanced plans for Cypress Crossing, a mixed-use development with 286 apartments that would replace parking lots in the Cypress Creek area of Oakland Park next to I-95.
The Oakland Park City Commission voted Wednesday on second reading to approve a master plan of development and six zoning waivers for Cypress Crossing, which would have more than 20,000 square feet for restaurants and other commercial uses. The commission also approved a related plat amendment.
Among other waivers, the city commission approved a height of eight stories for the 286-unit apartment building at Cypress Crossing, four stories higher than zoning standards allow.
Cypress Crossing is one of two mixed-use developments with a total of 631 market-rate apartments that Boca Raton-based Waypoint would build next to each other at the Cypress Creek Park-and-Ride facility on the southwest corner of East Cypress Creek Road and I-95.
Waypoint plans to build Cypress Crossing on the eastern half of the park-and-ride property, a 14-acre cluster of parking lots near the Cypress Creek Tri-Rail station. The eastern half of the park-and-ride lies in Oakland Park. The western half lies in Fort Lauderdale across North Andrews Avenue from the Tri-Rail station, where Waypoint plans to build WP Aspire Cypress Creek, a 345-unit apartment development.
Waypoint, led by founder and CEO Scott Lawlor, would replace surface parking at the park-and-ride property with dedicated spaces in a 694-space parking garage connected to WP Aspire Cypress Creek. Dedicated space in the parking garage also would replace three bus stops for Broward County Transit buses at the park-and-ride property.
Although Cypress Crossing and WP Aspire Cypress Creek would be built on sites in separate municipalities, Waypoint “did think about how the sites can mesh and function together as one site,” Nectaria Chakas, an attorney for the firm, said at the Oakland Park City Commission meeting on April 2, when the commission approved on first reading the master plan and zoning waivers for Cypress Crossing.
Waypoint controls the park-and-ride facility under a 99-ground lease from the Florida Department of Transportation. The lease will expire in about 80 years, Chakas said.
Intended to accommodate Tri-Rail commuters who drive to the Cypress Creek station, the park-and-ride facility is underused, Oakland Park Vice Mayor Steven Arnst said at the April 2 city commission meeting. The 14-acre property is used primarily by people who put donations in a Goodwill collection box there and by commercial vehicle drivers who temporarily park there, he said.
Cypress Crossing’s eight-story, 286-unit apartment building would have 5,720 square feet of ground-floor commercial space, and it would connect to a 522-space parking garage. The design of the development also includes 13 parallel parking spaces on streets around the apartment building.
Cypress Crossing also would have two 7,500-square-foot outparcel buildings along East Cypress Creek Road. Waypoint expects restaurants with outdoor dining areas to occupy about half the combined space in the two commercial buildings. The developer would put a total of 76 surface parking spaces next to the commercial outparcel buildings.
Chakas told commissioners at the April 2 meeting that Waypoint plans to build the two developments in three phases, starting with construction of a private street network for both and a 694-space parking garage for WP Aspire Cypress Creek, with about 250 of the spaces replacing some of the surface parking at the underused park-and-ride property.
Waypoint has a development agreement with Oakland Park that requires the firm to complete construction of Cypress Crossing by 2032. “We have seven years to construct this project, unless we come back to you for an extension,” Chakas said.
Founded in 2011, Waypoint is a developer, owner and operator of apartment properties, primarily focused on the Sun Belt, according to its website. It also has offices in Atlanta and Denver.