Lauderhill fattens tax break for Le Parc, Vivian Dimond’s planned 330-unit multifamily development
Lauderhill commissioners increased the property tax break for the project to offset higher construction costs
Developer and broker Vivian Dimond won a bigger tax break to offset the increased cost of building Le Parc at Lauderhill, a planned 330-unit apartment development.
The Lauderhill City Commission this week increased the maximum amount of property tax abatement over 10 years on the 9.9-acre Le Parc development to $9.1 million from $6.3 million.
Dimond, broker and principal of Miami-based Brown Harris Stevens, proposed the fatter tax break to offset a 38 percent increase in the total estimated cost of the Le Parc development, to $72 million from an initial estimate of $52 million.
In 2019, a company controlled by Dimond entered a development agreement with Lauderhill to build Le Parc at Lauderhill. Diamond told The Real Deal on Wednesday that construction hasn’t started yet because she is seeking a $70 million construction loan from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the application process has taken longer than expected.
Police officers, health care workers, and teachers are among the types of tenants Le Parc is likely to attract with “affordable, workforce” rents, Dimond said. Le Parc at Lauderhill is designed with 144 garden-style apartments and 186 mid-rise apartments, which will have an overall average size of about 900 square feet. The development will include a daycare center that measures about 2,800 square feet.
Under a revised development agreement with the city that commissioners approved Monday, Dimond must start building Le Parc by the end of the first quarter of 2023 and complete construction in two years — or forfeit part of the project’s property tax break.
Among other clawback provisions, failure to start construction before the end of the third quarter of 2023 could nullify all development incentives for Le Parc, including property tax abatement and waivers of building permit fees and city impact fees.
The Le Parc development site along State Road 7 between Northwest 15 Street and Northwest 13 Street is just north of the Lauderhill Performing Arts Center and within the local community redevelopment agency’s Arts and Entertainment District. Dimond said she bought the land from a bank for $3.7 million in 2015.
She told commissioners Monday night that she has refused multiple purchase offers for the Le Parc site, which may not be her last development in Lauderhill. “We get offers all the time on this land, and I say ‘No, I’m going to build this project, I’m going to stay in the city,”’ Dimond told commissioners. “This is not about just one project. I hope we will be here for a long time.”
Last month, the Lauderhill City Commission advanced a planned 245-unit multifamily development called Arthouse 441 in a commercial zone near the Le Parc site. The commission granted a special exception use development order that allows the construction of residential units on the Arthouse 441 site along State Road 7, also known as U.S. 441.
The Arthouse 441 project is pending negotiations between the development team and the city on property tax abatement for the property. The development team includes Las Vegas-based Schulman Properties and Hollywood-based developer Matthew Jacocks, who has a contract to acquire the development site on the west side of State Road 7 between Northwest 21 Street and Northwest 19 Street.
