Jake Wurzak, owner of the Dalmar hotel, filed a lawsuit against Fort Lauderdale late Thursday to block a high-rise project he says will cast a looming shadow over his 25-story hotel.
The new project would sit 10 feet to the south of the Dalmar, blocking its views of downtown and casting shadows over its sixth-floor pool deck, the lawsuit says.
Commissioners approved the project on Dec. 5, with Commissioner Warren Sturman casting the only “no” vote.
“No surprise,” Sturman said Friday after learning of the lawsuit from the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “I’m not surprised (about the lawsuit). That’s one of the reasons I voted against it. I feel really bad that the building is so close to them and blocking the view. It didn’t have to be that big.”
New York-based Naftali Group plans to build two apartment towers linked by a nine-story parking podium on a 1.25-acre parcel at 201 North Federal Highway. One tower would rise nearly 523 feet. The other would approach 493 feet.
To build the project as planned, the developer needed and got commission approval on two variances.
One allows the developer to build a podium that’s nearly 400 feet long despite a code that sets the maximum length at 300 feet. The other allows Naftali to exceed the maximum floor plate size of 12,500 square feet on each tower, allowing for hundreds more residential units, the lawsuit says.
“They’re not just bending the rules, but rewriting them at the Dalmar’s expense,” Wurzak told commissioners before the vote. “Their increase in the floor plates blocks our view, blocks our sunlight, blocks fresh air. It’s terrible.”
The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Broward circuit court, asks the court to declare the resolution approving the developer’s deviations from the city’s downtown master plan as void and unenforceable.
City Attorney Tom Ansbro says his policy is to never comment on pending litigation.
The Sun Sentinel contacted the entire commission on Friday.
Mayor Dean Trantalis and Commissioners Steve Glassman and John Herbst declined to comment, citing the lawsuit. Vice Mayor Pamela Beasley-Pittman could not be reached for comment.
The lawsuit argues that the process used to consider the deviations to allow the Naftali Group to add approximately 220 extra units to the proposed project failed to meet the principles of Fort Lauderdale’s downtown master plan.
“The deviation for maximum tower floor plate size was to allow the floor plate size to be enhanced from 12,500 square feet to 15,965 square feet for each of the 47 and 45 floor towers,” the lawsuit says. “The deviations would, if granted, allow the two towers to be expanded by hundreds of units.”
The master plan encourages a diverse, walkable and mixed-income downtown along with workforce housing, live work units, family-oriented housing, a variety of building scales and pedestrian-friendly buildings.
The lawsuit goes on to point out that none of the apartments will be “affordable” housing units. In lieu of including affordable units in the project, the developer plans to make a payment of $9.36 million that would be split between the county’s and Fort Lauderdale’s affordable housing trust fund.
If built as proposed, the project would harm the Dalmar by obscuring views and light for guests visiting the hotel’s pool deck and restaurant, the lawsuit says.
The commission, sensitive to those impacts, discussed requiring better screening and additional design related to architectural lighting or landscaping so the Dalmar’s guests would not have to look at a parking garage and headlights from vehicles, the lawsuit notes.
The lawsuit refers to comments made by Commissioner Herbst before the vote.
“If we’re going to again do a deviation from the code that’s going to have a negative impact on the Dalmar, I think they need to have an opportunity to agree or not agree,” he said. “And so I want to figure out how we wrap that up in this.”
The lawsuit also quotes the city attorney’s comments to the commission: “What I think I would recommend is that they try to meet, come to an agreement. If it fails, they bring that component back to you to solve.”
The lawsuit also includes comments made by Commissioner Sturman after his “no” vote.
“I do not think this meets intent,” Sturman said. “I cannot support this.”
Naftali Group released the following statement on Friday in response to the lawsuit.
“We plan to move forward with the development as scheduled,” Miki Naftali, Chairman and CEO of Naftali Group, said in the statement. “Naftali Group’s mission remains the same, to enhance the communities we enter with high-quality residential products. We are excited about the future of Fort Lauderdale and look forward to working with all parties involved to make this development a success.”
Susannah Bryan can be reached at sbryan@sunsentinel.com. Follow me on X @Susannah_Bryan