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In 2019, the Fort Lauderdale DDA engaged ULI’s Advisory Services to provide recommendations on how to enhance downtown Fort Lauderdale’s parks and open spaces. These recommendations became the guiding principles behind the DDA’s efforts to reimagine Huizenga Park.
World-class public spaces are essential infrastructure for vibrant, healthy, and inclusive cities. With initial support from a 2019 Urban Land Institute Advisory Services Panel examining the city’s parks and open spaces, it was this thinking that prompted the Fort Lauderdale Downtown Development Authority (DDA) to move forward with the reimagining of Huizenga Park.
Huizenga Park is Downtown Fort Lauderdale’s signature gathering space, a centrally connected hub at the intersection of Las Olas Boulevard, Andrews Avenue, and the New River. The DDA originally built the park in the late 1990s at a time when the county seat was primarily an employment center with virtually no residents.
To help nurture a growing downtown, the DDA built a large festival park to keep employees in the urban core on nights and weekends. While this model for Huizenga Park was successful at first, Downtown Fort Lauderdale has since transformed into a lively urban center and dynamic 18-hour city.
Downtown Fort Lauderdale’s population has increased by 80% in just over a decade and the city has emerged as a destination of choice for young professionals and families. Close to 50 new residential and mixed-use developments are planned for Fort Lauderdale’s urban core, more than doubling the existing 13,000 units already built. With so much growth in the pipeline, high-quality public spaces will be essential for building a compact, walkable, and livable urban center.
This sustained momentum led the DDA to engage ULI’s National Advisory Services panel in 2019 to provide recommendations on how to enhance downtown parks and open spaces. A panel of national thought leaders spent one week in Fort Lauderdale touring the city and interviewing more than 150 community leaders.
Key recommendations made by the panel included:
Implement a public-private partnership to manage and activate the public realm.
Develop additional resources to sustain existing public spaces.
Strengthen and connect the existing network of downtown parks.
ULI’s recommendations became the guiding principles supporting the DDA’s vision to reimagine Huizenga Park. Armed with the panel’s guidance, the DDA conducted a deep dive into the most successful urban parks in the country. Park leaders from Dallas to Detroit, Tampa to Sarasota, Houston to Minneapolis, and beyond shared best practices on what it takes to build and manage a highly activated downtown park.
After learning from the best, the DDA selected globally renowned design firm Perkins&Will to create a new vision for the riverfront park: transforming from a one-dimensional open space to an elegant series of outdoor rooms seamlessly connecting Las Olas Boulevard with the New River. When the park reopens, Huizenga Park will become Downtown Fort Lauderdale’s outdoor living room, office, dining room, and backyard all in one.
A major programming addition to Huizenga Park will be a newly constructed restaurant along the water to be funded, built, and operated by Specialty Restaurants Corporation, a national restauranteur best known locally for the Rusty Pelican on Key Biscayne. In addition to activating the park daily, the restaurant lease revenue will fund a portion of park construction costs and will ultimately help sustain the high level of operations and maintenance needed for a best-in-class urban park.