There are consequences to a fast-growing downtown: Tens of thousands of flushing toilets.
That could mean that a long-awaited city park being planned in the heart of Fort Lauderdale’s Flagler Village will end up being the home of a high-capacity sewage lift station needed to accommodate the city’s rapid growth.
Mayor Dean Trantalis said he was “totally blindsided” by the news delivered by City Manager Rickelle Williams during an annual goal-setting meeting on Tuesday.
“I think we have some capacity concerns that can limit future development,” Williams told the commission. “We know we need a sewer lift station in the area.”
Trantalis told the South Florida Sun Sentinel he is not in favor of the park housing the massive lift station, which would take up a 50 foot-by-50 foot space.
A similar lift station — a system that pumps sewage from an underground basin into a sewage main for transfer to a treatment plant — was built in nearby Peter Feldman Park about a year ago. The mayor now thinks it was a mistake to put it there.
“I think it takes away from the park,” he said. “It’s big and bulky and ugly.”
Trantalis says downtown may need a new sewage lift station, but it should go somewhere else.
“We will find the right place for it,” he said. “We still need to activate the park. And when I say activate, I don’t mean pumping sewage. I mean a place for families and children to enjoy. We have to make sure what we did at Peter Feldman Park doesn’t happen again in this park.”
During Tuesday’s goal-setting meeting, commissioners were brainstorming ideas for the park when Williams informed them of the need for the sewage lift station. The new park, she said, was the most appropriate spot.
The land at 301 N. Andrews Ave., worth at least $26 million and once home to the city’s former One Stop Shop permitting office, has been fenced off for years.
A controversial plan that won commission approval in 2022 would have turned the 2.75-acre parcel over to nightlife entrepreneur Jeff John for up to 100 years. John had plans to build a concert venue and towering food hall with a park in between.
Commissioners terminated the deal last year after John failed to show required proof of financing.
On Tuesday, commissioners discussed soliciting a proposal from the development community to help the city come up with a new plan for the park that would likely include a sewage lift station.
“Nothing is a done deal,” Trantalis said Thursday. “You have to look twice and ask if this is the most appropriate location. I’d like to see the strategic plan from Public Works so the commission can see where the lift stations are going to go and have a better idea of what the urban landscape is going to look like 10 years from now. We can’t just do this in a helter-skelter fashion.”
Locating a sewage lift station in the park isn’t going to be popular with residents, said Ralph Zeltman, a retired county engineer who serves on Fort Lauderdale’s Infrastructure Task Force.
“Usually they don’t want to have it in a park where there’s children,” he said. “There is usually an odor associated with these pump stations. You usually want to put it in an area where people aren’t going to come close to it. If it’s in the middle of a residential neighborhood, they need to put it underground.”
Mary Peloquin, a longtime resident and former member of the city’s Parks, Recreation and Beaches Board, agreed.
“That is not a place for a lift station,” she said. “There’s not much green space downtown and now you’re going to put a lift station there? Find another place. It makes no sense.”
Peloquin said a similar lift station in George English Park off East Sunrise Boulevard emits a foul odor. “And that one is smaller than this new one,” she said.
Commissioner Steve Glassman, whose district includes Flagler Village, said he was told by staff a couple weeks ago that the park was the best spot for the lift station. He says he prefers the new lift station go in the park as opposed to the City Hall site.
“I made it clear that it needs to be in a corner somewhere so it doesn’t sit in the middle of the park,” he said Thursday. “I think the City Hall is going to be a bit more activated and busy. The City Hall is more of a civic space. It’s better to have it in a space that’s more open and green.”
Either way, he said, the lift station has to go somewhere.
“Bottom line, we are growing,” Glassman added. “We have to make way for that infrastructure. People are moving in. We have to plan for that.”
Susannah Bryan can be reached at sbryan@sunsentinel.com. Follow me on X @Susannah _Bryan