Will the 1974 -75 sad Fort Lauderdale real estate story be repeated?

 

 

Downtown Fort Lauderdale 2025

By Jane Feehan 

Fort Lauderdale has seen several building busts and booms since World War II.

A review of 1974-75 news stories offers both similarities to and differences from today’s housing picture. 

A national recession coupled with an energy crisis played a role in Fort Lauderdale’s housing prospects, but local factors take center stage in this summary.

This is not to be considered an economic analysis.

1974-1975

• 1974 “brought a halt to one of the biggest building and real estate booms in the area’s history.”
• The area had seen five construction downturns since World War II; the 1974 slump was viewed as the worst.
• Interest rates across the nation rose to over 11 percent. Congressional spending was reported “as greatly responsible for today’s double-digit inflation.”
• South Florida newspapers reported “too much building going on.” One analyst claimed more units were being built than could be absorbed by population; the “absorption rate was key to the health of the construction industry.”  Some condo and rental building projects plunged into financial straits.   
• Adding to the condo glut were speculators unloading multiple units at the same time. 
• Few visited condominium models at sales centers. Some rental buildings were only half occupied. Developers thought about converting some buildings into condos but reversed plans as the condo market worsened. A few developers rented out unsold condo units.
• Construction of single-family homes stood at a fraction of new condo and rental units built.
• Thousands of construction workers were laid off. Area unemployment in 1975—over 18 percent—exceeded that of the state and nation.
• The number of Broward County’s condo units increased 122 percent by 1974. The steep trajectory began in 1973.
• Even before 1973 the list of Fort Lauderdale new condo buildings was impressive. New condos opened as reported by Fort Lauderdale News:

1970: Birch Crest, Marine Tower, Royal Mariner; Regency Tower South and the Venetian;

1971-mid 70s: Riviera, Shore Club; Point of Americas; Embassy Towers; Plaza South.

• By 1975 other problems hit the condo market: Construction and safety concerns; recreation leases and confusing regulations and restrictions. Condo sales were still down by the end of 1975.                                  See below for 2024-25 

   

Downtown Fort Lauderdale 2023

 

2024-2025

Though numbers for late 2024 and 2025 Fort Lauderdale and Broward County are not in yet, some comparisons prove noteworthy.

• Interest rates, though lower than they were during 1974-1975, are higher than in recent decades; they are expected to be about 6.3 percent or a bit lower by the end of 2025, driving many to rentals instead of condos or single-family dwellings.
• Many today blame Congressional spending for inflation woes.
• The condominium market is flat while single-family dwelling sales are up. Condos are not selling because of high special assessments to bring buildings up to new standards required by law after the Surfside condominium collapse in 2021. The law also requires increasing condo reserves for repairs, another financial obstacle for condo buyers.
• The Florida Chamber of Commerce reported in early 2025 that the number of new Florida residents was nearly equal to those moving out of the state in 2024, reversing a trend that hit a high for newcomer traffic in 2021-22.
• Broward County unemployment rate in March 2025 (unadjusted) stands at 3.4 percent.
• Ten-X.com published a report in early 2024* that indicated Fort Lauderdale saw the highest rental vacancy rate since the beginning of 2023. It was also reported that most new rental buildings focus on building apartments with an average rate of $2,400+ per month for a one-bedroom apartment.
• The 2024 rental building construction wave is expected to continue until at least 2026. Ten-X also reported that apartment fundamentals softened in 2024. Vacancy rates in Fort Lauderdale at four-and five-star buildings stand at 9.8 percent.
• Another company reports the vacancy rate in downtown Fort Lauderdale averages across all rental buildings 4.9 percent. Pompano Beach reports a 3.8 percent vacancy rate; southwest Broward and Coral Springs report a 4.9 percent vacancy rate.
• A vacancy rate over 10 percent indicates low demand (or overbuilding?). It is interesting to note that the vacancy rate in the Cape Coral-Fort Myers area was at 15.3 percent in 2023, the highest vacancy rate in the nation that year.
• New construction and vacancy numbers vary according to the year, the quarter and the publication. Varying reports claim 10,000-14,000 units going up in the next year or so in the Fort Lauderdale area.

Numbers for 2024 and 2025 will reflect economic and political uncertainty. Many factors differ from 1974-75 while some ring familiar. Let’s hope the 1974-75 story does not repeat.

 

Sources:

Fort Lauderdale News, May 30, 1974

Fort Lauderdale News, June 1, 1974

Fort Lauderdale News, July 11, 1974

Fort Lauderdale News, Nov. 19, 1974

Fort Lauderdale News, Sept. 7, 1974

Fort Lauderdale News Jan. 16, 1975

Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 22, 1975

Fort Lauderdale News, Nov. 22, 1975

Sun-Sentinel, Feb. 7, 2025

U.S. Census Bureau Construction Coverage

*TenX 2024 Knowledge Center: Jan.11, 2024

Matthews Real Estate Services: Matthews.com, Broward County, Sept. 18, 2024

 

Tags: Fort Lauderdale building, Fort Lauderdale developments, overbuilding

Broward County and Fort Lauderdale traffic congestion: it's elementary in a vertical city

Galt Mile - Fort Lauderdale 2020

 

By Jane Feehan

South Florida traffic issues have commanded headlines for decades, offering little more than hope that roads will catch up to population.

During the 1950s the worst traffic jam in Florida was reported to be the bridge over Fort Lauderdale's New River at U.S. Highway 1, where it took 45 minutes to cross. The Henry E. Kinney Tunnel opened in 1960, helping to ease the traffic problem. That year Broward County’s population was counted at about 343,000, up from 83,000 residents in 1950.

Traffic was abysmal in 1979, the decade that many high-rises were built (and recession followed). East-west routes were inadequate (and still are in most areas). There were 793,074 registered vehicles in Broward County that year with a census of 986,000 residents. Commissioner Anne Kolb said, “Broward County roads are terrible.” She was right way back in 1979. Parts of A-1-A in Pompano then were already at 140 percent capacity, and that was only one example of the traffic problems.

Mega hotels & condos
Fort Lauderdale Beach 2021

Expectations pointed to about one million Broward County residents by 2000. That estimate was wrong. According to the U.S. Census, 1.6 million lived in Broward that year. In 2022, the population jumped to nearly 1,984,000 residents with 1.623 million auto vehicle registrations, according to  Florida Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. (Broward County reported 1.9 million registered vehicles but probably included all vehicles, including mobile homes and vessels.)

Downtown Fort Lauderdale is booming with one project after another getting a green light from the Fort Lauderdale commission. A reported 40 projects to include 16,000 condos and apartments were in the pipeline in July 2022. New projects are announced each month—sometimes weekly. It’s already a problem getting emergency responders through downtown. Fort Lauderdale is now a vertical city. And, residents are leaving downtown as fast as they can. Quality of life issues, I’m told.

A Broward County 30-year one-penny sales tax passed a vote in 2018 and is expected to raise $16 billion for transportation projects, including rapid transit options. 

Miami-Dade passed a half-penny tax in 2002 for transportation improvements. Let’s hope Broward County’s one-penny tax is better directed. Miami-Dade’s tax has been diverted to maintenance and operations and special projects. “A lot of the transportation promises of two decades ago have not been fulfilled,” reported WLRN.

As with California, it’s doubtful Florida drivers in this big state will be using mass transit. The problems (and additional expense) always seem to be getting riders from rail stops to final locations. There is no synchronization of north-south initiatives with east-west follow-through.

And “rising seas?” When are engineers and government officials going to get brave enough to admit that developing mega hotels and mega condos on nearly every square inch of Broward County affects water runoff and adds to flooding problems? And of course, traffic is worse than ever (visualize evacuating in an EV when a hurricane threatens or returning after one when there's no electricity).  As Sherlock Holmes used to say, “It’s elementary, my dear Watson.”

 Copyright © 2023. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan

Downtown Fort Lauderdale 2022: the vertical city

Other Sources:

Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 7, 1979

Florida Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles

The Real Deal, July 1, 2022

South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Jan. 28, 2023

Broward County (Broward.org)

 

Tags: Broward County traffic problems, Broward County history, Fort Lauderdale history, Fort Lauderdale traffic, Fort Lauderdale downtown, downtown Fort Lauderdale

Developers Haft-Gaines in 1970s Fort Lauderdale: Bay Colony, Imperial Point, Inverrary and ...

 

By Jane Feehan

New condominium and rental projects overtaking the Fort Lauderdale landscape like a bad dream calls for a look back to the 1970s. That decade witnessed a tremendous growth surge.

Haft-Gaines, led by University of North Carolina classmates Burt Haft and Jack Gaines were at the helm of several high-profile developments in Fort Lauderdale and later in Palm Beach County. According to news accounts they ventured to Fort Lauderdale after reading a Kiplinger Letter about Florida’s opportunities.

Gaines said in a 1970 interview that they started building houses in Pompano and Boca Raton. They soon turned their attention to Fort Lauderdale where they developed Imperial Point followed by The Landings in the 1960s and Bay Colony in 1970.

If you think things are crazy now, note they charged an admission fee just to see models of Bay Colony, touted then as the most expensive sub-division in the U.S. with prices of $200,000 to $600,000. (News accounts indicated deposed President of Nicaragua, Anastasio Somoza, was interested in a property at 100 Bay Colony Lane).

Gaines had California on his mind. Not for developments but for inspiration. He wanted to bring California to Florida. He brought Richard Leitch and Associates of Newport, California to work magic on 1,000 acres off West Oakland Park Boulevard. Waterfalls, lakes, small, sculpted hills served as the backdrop of this new community of apartments, condos and houses. 

This showstopper was Inverrary, a $500 million development opened in 1970. It was also the site of 21 tennis courts, three golf courses and a 14-room townhouse for Jackie Gleason overlooking a lake. (For more use search for Gleason.) They reached $1 million in sales within days of launching the development. Haft-Gaines, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fuqua Industries by 1970, moved their office from Imperial Point to Inverrary. That's where the action and headlines reigned.

The community generated headlines for years about real estate, golf tournaments and more.

One of those headlines was a White House ceremony in 1973 where First Lady Pat Nixon gave the Haft-Gaines company the “first-place-in-nation” award among private firms for beautification efforts along a highway; that was for Inverarry, where waterfalls mark its entrance and lakes dot its landscape. Company Comptroller Chuck Tilbrook accepted the award on behalf of Haft-Gaines.

The company later developed Frenchmen’s Creek, an exclusive community in Palm Beach Gardens. Jack Gaines died in 2004 at Juno Beach; Burt Haft died in 2020 in Aventura. They set the standards for Florida developments and understood the dynamic of real estate where “creating an emotionality” played a key role in buying a house.

Copyright © 2022 All rights reserved. Jane Feehan

Sources:

Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 10, 1970
Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 31, 1970
Fort Lauderdale News, Oct. 10, 1970
Fort Lauderdale News, Feb. 20, 1971
Fort Lauderdale News, May 5, 1973
www.greensboro.com
Legacy.com

Tags: Fort Lauderdale developers, Inverrary, The Landings, Haft-Gaines, Bay Colony, Fort Lauderdale history, Fort Lauderdale communities, Fort Lauderdale neighborhoods

The last of Fort Lauderdale's Las Olas isles to be developed was ...

Las Olas canals 1961
Archives of the State of Florida/Rubel, A. 1961

By Jane Feehan 

In October 1957, about 150 Fort Lauderdale area realtors boarded the Jungle Queen III for a presentation and cruise to the last of the “Las Olas district” isles to be developed. Most who consider what would be the last of those manmade isles would typically assign it to the Las Olas Boulevard area.

In fact, this last developed isle was Sunrise Key (formerly Wells Island) at the intersection of NE 19^th Avenue and NE 6^th Court. It sat along the Middle River, directly north of Nurmi Drive and about 1,000 ft. from the Intracoastal Waterway. A bridge was built for the new development over the Karen Canal at that intersection (some will remember the Karen Club Apartments, now Gateway Terrace Apartments nearby). The key was comprised of separated islands that were filled in for a road, royal palms, utilities and 82 lots.  

Purchased by Eastern Properties from St. Luke’s Presbyterian Hospital Chicago, the 35-acre key was connected at that time to Hendricks Isle; the two keys were separated by dredging during development of this new community, soon to be site of “$100,000-class” homes, a hefty price in the late 1950s.

Eastern Properties promoted this project in 1957 by offering an all-expenses paid trip to Cuba or Nassau (or equivalent) to each buyer of a lot sold through October that year. By March 1959, 35 of the 82 lots had been sold. Development of Sunrise Key was completed late 1959. The first completed dwelling (1959), designed by John O’Neill, was a 5,000 sq. ft. home with three bedrooms and five bathrooms.

Before Sunrise Key, Eastern Properties, headed by Charles Hoy, A.T. Manno and R.L. Gordon, developed Lake Estates and Golf Estates in Fort Lauderdale. By that time, they had also developed Eastern Shores in North Miami Beach and several communities in Clearwater and St. Petersburg on Florida’s west coast.

Sources:

Fort Lauderdale News, Oct. 1, 1957

Fort Lauderdale News, Oct. 19, 1957

Fort Lauderdale News, Oct. 26, 1957

Fort Lauderdale News, April 13, 1958

Fort Lauderdale News, March 28, 1959

Tags: Fort Lauderdale in the 1950s, Las Olas isles, manmade islands, Fort Lauderdale developments, Jane Feehan, Fort Lauderdale history