iOS and Mac developer
In yesterday’s election the North Andrews Gardens neighborhood voted to join the city of Oakland Park. Until now, North Andrews Gardens, which borders on my street, was an unincorporated area of Broward County.
This is very good news for us. Since this street was the border between the city of Oakland Park and unincorporated area, neither the city or county would do any maintenance on this street to fix our severe flooding problem. Hopefully Oakland Park will now do some drainage repairs.
Hurricane Frances seems to be heading right in our direction. Unless it changes course, it looks very bad. It will most likely hit Friday or Saturday.
It looks like we’re going to dodge this one, but the people on the gulf coast aren’t so lucky.
From the Miami Herald: Within a few months, 4,500 Broward students — some as young as 9 — will be on the front lines of a technological revolution in the county’s classrooms. Each student in the pilot project will be issued an Apple iBook computer.
The School Board has spent $5 million from its capital budget for the iBooks — the first step toward putting a personal computer in the hands of every child in grades 3 to 12.
School officials caution they’re still working on details of what’s called one-to-one computing, which is planned for Monarch High in Coconut Creek, Miramar High, Attucks Middle in Hollywood and Broward Estates Elementary in Fort Lauderdale.
But technology leaders are already thinking bigger. “One-to-one is a big initiative for us,” said the school district’s new chief information officer, Vijay Sonty. “We want to reform and restructure how technology is used in schools.”
From Sun-Sentinel:
Despite some residents’ doubts that the blighted district could ever become pedestrian friendly, they will soon be able to sip java at a new coffee shop called Culinary Delights, listen to live music at a soon-to-open restaurant called The Flomingo or walk on landscaped sidewalks recently installed along the Florida East Coast Railway.
“This is what we’ve been preaching about for years and years,” said Kevin Bernardi, a downtown developer. “Finally, things are clicking. Everybody has always said Dixie Highway would never be nice, but in the last two months things have changed from night to day.”
City officials are remaking downtown with an $18.5 million loan from the Florida League of Cities, hoping to create an urban area where people can live, work, eat and shop.
Two new residential projects are planned for the area, new stores are opening, storeowners are fixing up their properties, and Realtors say potential investors are routinely combing the streets looking for sites.
“If you haven’t been here in a while, it’s a big surprise,” Commissioner Don Migliore said. “People are starting to take pride in this city.”
The biggest visible change involves the area surrounding the train tracks, which last month received a $700,000 upgrade with new fencing, flowers and grass. Sidewalks will also connect both sides of the railway, making it safer for residents to cross the tracks.
Another major change will be along Northeast 12th Avenue, which runs parallel to Dixie Highway. The area will be revamped with new drainage, streets, landscaping, lighting and additional parking. The project should be under way by November, said Special Projects Coordinator Pat Himelberger.
As downtown improves, people are paying more attention to the area, said Realtor Hugh McKerlie. He said Oakland Park is becoming more popular among investors because it offers larger, more affordable lots compared with such neighboring areas as Wilton Manors and Victoria Park.
“Oakland Park is the next east neighborhood that people can find great buys,” said McKerlie, who works for Galleria Collection of Fine Homes in Fort Lauderdale. “People looking to move here can’t find a decent-sized lot for under $400,000 anywhere else.”
The proposed downtown district stretches from Oakland Park Boulevard to Northeast 42nd Street between Northeast 10th and 12th avenues.Migliore said a new wave of development is expected to hit the city after a land-use amendment called a local activity center is established in November, which will allow for residential, retail and commercial zoning in the 200-acre district. With the activity center’s mixed zoning, the city can be much more flexible in allowing developers to build, particularly on sites that have been zoned industrial. The amendment has received state approval and is being reviewed by the county, he said.
I moved here just in time. Other units similar to mine in this development are now going for $10,000 to $20,000 more than I paid for mine last year.
Nice article in the NY Times about Wilton Manors.
By the mid-1990’s, this small, once comfortably middle-class city just north of downtown Fort Lauderdale had its share of woes. Crime, drugs and prostitution blighted various neighborhoods. The local Piggly Wiggly supermarket needed security guards before it shut down completely.
Then in 1997 George Kessinger converted a boarded-up bank in a derelict strip mall into a gay bar, and things began to change. Boards were removed from other storefronts in the mall, and more gay-oriented businesses opened — a bar, a coffee shop, two men’s clothing stores.
Soon homes that would not sell for $80,000 or $90,000 even in a frenzied market moved briskly for $300,000 to $400,000, as gay men and women priced out of South Beach, Key West and Victoria Park in Fort Lauderdale moved to the more affordable bungalows of Wilton Manors.
Now, the city of 13,000 is 35 percent to 40 percent gay and thriving. It has a higher proportion of same-sex households than any other city in the country except Provincetown, Mass., and Guerneville, Calif., in the Sonoma wine country, according to a new study of census data.
Unlike Provincetown and Guerneville, though, Wilton Manors is not a resort town. Nor does it conform to clichés about what the United States’ third-gayest city would be like. Its homes are modest, built mostly in the 1960’s and of no particular architectural interest. There are no chic restaurants, no gym.
Nice article about Wilton Manors in Salon.
Developer Paul Hugo said he targets gay readers when advertising his luxury properties that will soon be built at three different sites in the city. Hugo and developer Robert Mannino said their project, called Villa Escondido, is promoted every week with full-page ads in the gay-oriented Express. They advertise their projects in mainstream publications, as well, Hugo said.
“What’s happening in Wilton Manors is because of the gay community,” he said. “It was an area ripe for development, and I’ve watched it flourish.”
No longer a sleepy town, Wilton Manors has morphed into a city packed with pricey properties, many starting in the high $300,000s. Developers say they want to attract people who can buy them. (LibertyPost)
Wilton Manors is probably the best proof that a large gay population increases property values. The same thing is now starting to happen in Oakland Park.
Today was the kind of day that makes me glad I live in Florida. I went to the craft fair at Lauderdale by the Sea, which is less than 10 minutes from me even in bad traffic (like today, with the street closed for the fair). Brunch at Aruba’s beach cafe, and when I got back a cookout by the pool.