Broward County commissioners voted Tuesday to build a new government center in downtown Fort Lauderdale, replacing the site they’ve had for decades, the former home of a Burdines store.
The choice means they could be moved into their new location by 2026, at an estimated $322 million to demolish and rebuild the building that’s there now.
In June, the county purchased the Robert Hayes Gore State Office Building, 201 W. Broward Blvd., a five-story structure, for $65.5 million, not including closing costs and other fees.
It is informally known as the “Gore Property,” named for the family that once owned the site.
The Gore family was a dynasty: Robert Hayes Gore was appointed territorial governor by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 in Puerto Rico. He purchased the Daily News and Evening Sentinel during a visit to Fort Lauderdale in 1929 for $75,000. He changed the paper’s name to the Fort Lauderdale Daily News. The name was changed to the Fort Lauderdale News in 1953, and eventually to the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
The property is 4.4 acres, located next to the Brightline station. The building is almost 80,000 square feet and formerly housed various state agency offices.
It means leaving the current space, which has long been considered obsolete. County staff said the cost of deferred maintenance would run into the millions of dollars.
“It’s just the perfect site for our relocation for our new government center,” said County Mayor Lamar Fisher. “It allows us to continue to operate here without interruption to county services.”
Only one commissioner voted against it: Michael Udine, who said it was too expensive of a project with too little information. “Are Broward County voters ready to spend half-a-billion dollars on a new government center?” he asked.
The county’s current building was once a Burdines, built in the 1940s, and employees have been using its lofty escalators to go from floor to floor. The new county center opened in the Burdines space in 1985, consolidating 40 county agencies into one building and sparing taxpayers the financial burden of continuing to rent office space.
Fisher said the county expects the building to be demolished and redeveloped.
Lisa J. Huriash can be reached at lhuriash@sunsentinel.com. Follow on X, formerly Twitter, @LisaHuriash