Huge Davie Project at Issue Tonight

By Breanne Gilpatrick, The Miami Herald

Feb. 7–It’s a showdown more than a year in the making.

The developer of Aventura wants to be in Davie in a big way, with a landscaped lakefront shopping, eating and office mecca that would cover more than 150 acres between Interstate 75 and Shotgun Road. It would be the town’s largest-ever development project.

The Commons proposal goes to the Davie Town Council for the first time tonight, but its advocates and enemies have been at work for months, putting up signs, handing out fliers and flooding council members with e-mails and letters.

Depending on whose signs you read, The Commons would be either a financial windfall or an ugly commercial blister on residential western Davie.

Friends and foes do agree on one thing: As one of the last vacant expanses in the county, the West Davie tract won’t stay empty forever. The town’s current land use plan calls for no more than one home per acre. Council members must decide whether the pasture at the northeast corner of Shotgun Road and Arvida Parkway will be developed as high-end subdivisions or a mammoth commercial development.

As proposed, The Commons would include 1.1 million square feet of retail, including 885,000 square feet of office space as well as a 300-room hotel, said Jodie Siegel, an attorney for Turnberry Associates, which is working with the Coral Gables-based Retail Estate to develop the land.

Developers compare the project to Boca Raton Town Center or Aventura Mall — another Turnberry development. And possible tenants include Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s and Saks Fifth Avenue.

Developers say the project could begin construction in two years, assuming The Commons receives all the required approvals from the town.

And the land use change on tonight’s agenda requires a 4-1 supermajority vote.

But developers have tried to paint a rosy picture for the proposed Town Center development: $3.5 million a year in tax revenue and license fees, 6,000 new jobs, no new students to crowd schools, and — thanks to a proposed I-75 ramp — little new traffic on local two-lane roads.

With the real estate market fizzling and the state Legislature considering expanding the homestead exemption, commercial developments like The Commons can help insulate cities from financial bumps, experts say.

"You just don’t want to be chucking away the remaining parcels on single-family homes that don’t generate nearly the amount of tax revenue," said Robert Lang, director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech in Alexandria, Va., which studies metropolitan growth and development.

Miriam Barkus believes The Commons would be a boon. A sign on the edge of her 15 acres across Shotgun Road from the proposed site proclaims, "The Commons: Smart Growth for Davie."

WIN-WIN FOR SOME

"I think it’s going to be a win-win for everyone," said Barkus, who has lived in the town for 15 years. "When I moved to Davie, you stopped for a herd of cows to cross the road. And I loved it . . . But there’s a lot of development happening."

Farther south on Shotgun, across the canal that jogs alongside the scenic corridor, a green and white sign declares "STOP DAVIE COMMONS SHOPPING CENTER."

That’s the hope of Warren Niles, president of the Highland Ranch Estates homeowners association. Its million dollar homes surround the proposed site, and many of their residents are horrified by the prospect of massive commercial development that would bring noise, light, traffic and an end to their semi-rural lifestyle.

"We didn’t buy our homes here to live next to Aventura Mall," Niles said. "If we wanted to live next to Aventura Mall, we would have moved to Aventura."

Developers have said The Commons would be hidden by trees and shrubs that also would blunt noise. Local traffic would be limited because the only entrance would be from I-75. And they are working with the Florida Department of Transportation to add an eastbound interchange at Royal Palm Boulevard.

With the ramp, The Commons would add 65 vehicle trips per day to local roads, according to a traffic analysis by Turnberry and Retail Estate. Single-family homes would add 1,528 vehicle trips per day.

If developers don’t get FDOT approval, they have said they would withdraw the proposal.

OTHERS ARE SKEPTICAL

Damon Carroll is not convinced. "You can’t stick a metropolis in the middle of suburbia and expect it not to trickle out," said Carroll, whose home is on an acre near the site. "You can put all the buffers and borders and landscaping you want. It doesn’t matter."

An initial vote in November by the town’s Local Planning Agency ended in a tie. To move the project on to the council, agency members took a second vote to recommend rejection.

That recommendation isn’t binding. Most council members are reserving judgment on the project, but Councilwoman Judy Paul already has said she plans to vote against the project.

Weston city leaders also have been working to derail it. Weston City Manager John Flint complains that it funnels all the traffic through Weston, without generating any tax revenue for the city. Weston plans a full contingent of commissioners, development and legal staff plan to join Flint in protecting their turf at tonight’s meeting in Davie.

In the end, town officials will need to weigh the benefits of commercial development against the concerns of residents, said Frank Schnidman, a senior fellow at the Center for Urban and Environmental Solutions at Florida Atlantic University.

"The transformation in Davie is going to occur," he said. "You have to seriously consider what’s in the best interest of Davie."

—–

Copyright (c) 2007, The Miami Herald

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

NYSE:JWN, NYSE:FD, NYSE:SKS, NASDAQ-OTCBB:ESWW,