[FONT=Verdana]The new owners of Las Olas Riverfront -- a $55 million bar-restaurant-movie complex on the river downtown -- plan to demolish it. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]Deerfield Beach-based Boca Developers Inc. is considering tearing it down and starting over, city officials confirmed. Executives with Boca Developers have declined to talk about their plans, which have not been submitted to the city for its required approval and could change.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]Heavily subsidized by taxpayers, the 260,000-square-foot entertainment zone that takes up a good portion of a city block at Las Olas Boulevard, Andrews Avenue and the New River opened eight years ago. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]Had it succeeded, Las Olas Riverfront would be a destination for tourists and locals, a place to show off the beauty of a downtown with a river running through it. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]But Riverfront is considered by many to be a flop and, at this point, disposable. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]Jack Loos, one of the original developers, said the flaws were lack of parking and a downtown that, until recently, had no residential population. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]'That center was designed poorly from Day 1, and was destined to failure,' City Manager George Gretsas said. The complex did not take advantage of the riverfront, he said. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]Taxpayers to both the Broward County School Board and the city of Fort Lauderdale lost more than $3 million in the deals leading to the development of Las Olas Riverfront. They still have a stake in it because the site must remain a public entertainment zone until at least 2011 under the terms of the original city-subsidized deal with a group of developers, said Mayor Jim Naugle, who opposes Riverfront's destruction. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]Gretsas said he has seen sketches of the evolving proposal, which he, Naugle, and other city officials said includes hundreds of condos as well as retail and entertainment businesses. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]Boca Developers earlier proposed tearing down only the movie theaters to build condos, but that plan fell apart. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]Developers who helped fashion the original plan about 15 years ago expressed regret that their work, the ensuing two years of disruptive construction and $55 million in investment might fall in a heap of dust and rubble. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]'I'm saddened. I think the project was ahead of its time,' Loos said. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]The complex eventually was taken on solely by Hollywood developer Michael Swerdlow, who last summer sold it. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]Boca Developers, a partner with Swerdlow elsewhere, bought Las Olas Riverfront in July for $31.9 million, county records indicate. The company has built numerous condo projects, including Biscayne Landings, a $3 billion mini-town project on a 190-acre former Superfund site in North Miami.[/FONT]