Fort Lauderdale staff updates board on parks bond, school joint-use projects and Floyd Hall trail grant

Ben Rogers, acting assistant city manager and a staff lead for parks and recreation, told the Fort Lauderdale Parks & Recreation Advisory Board that the city’s parks bond program has moved from planning into procurement and construction for a number of projects.

“The program started basically with the concept… the master plan was developed, completed in September 2016,” Alex Torres, who the staff introduced as overseeing the parks bond program, said as he walked board members through the program’s history, phases and current status. Torres said the bond approved in 2019 totaled $200 million, with the first tranche of about $80 million available in 2020 and a later $60 million tranche drawn in 2023.

City staff emphasized why the projects matter: the bond funds a mix of neighborhood parks, signature projects and joint-use facilities at public schools that city and school system staff expect to open public access to school grounds and amenities. Torres said the program initially identified roughly 16–16 school projects, later expanded, with about 15–16 schools at various stages of design, permitting or procurement.

Torres and Rogers told the board that rising construction costs after 2019 and the larger number of schools added to the program strained available budgets. “Inflationary impacts are gonna shrink budgets,” Rogers said, explaining staff had cut consultant fees on smaller projects and added internal project management capacity to speed delivery. Torres described micro-phasing for schools with limited budgets — breaking large scopes into smaller procurements so the city can accomplish parts of each school project within available funding.

Staff provided project-level status: one school project was described as complete (identified as “PR High School” in the handouts); others were in permitting, procurement or design. Torres said several projects were ready to move to bid, and the city has spent roughly half of the first $80 million tranche as of February 2025.

Board members raised questions about specific sites and how the joint-use work will operate. Sunrise Middle School was discussed as an example where the school requested a pool chiller and that the facility would be available to the public under hours determined by the school’s programming. Amy Jean Baptiste, deputy director of parks and recreation, said hours for school-based parks “will be open in the summer, when school is out, holidays and weekends,” and that specific scheduling would align with school programming.

Torres and Rogers said staff are pursuing nontraditional procurement approaches, piggybacking on existing contracts and using expedited solicitations where lawful to reduce procurement timelines. Rogers said the city is onboarding an additional project manager to help accelerate work.

Separately, staff said they intend to apply for a state grant to support recreational trails at Floyd Hall. Deputy Director Amy Jean Baptiste told the board the city plans to request about $450,000 from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (state grant) to offset trail costs; the city’s match for the grant was described as roughly $1.15 million and the overall Floyd Hall project was described in staff remarks as a mult-million-dollar undertaking (staff cited a $6,000,000 overall project figure). The board was informed a public meeting for the overall bond had been held and that separate outreach for the grant was part of the grant application process.

Board members pressed staff for more frequent, accessible status reporting. Rogers said staff already started monthly memos to the city commission detailing the status of bond projects by commission district and would provide that status memo to the advisory board on a monthly basis as well.

Staff listed common constraints the program faces: limited budgets relative to expanded scope, permitting timelines for projects requiring design, and the need to sequence work across neighborhoods and school schedules. Rogers said staff are using commission discretionary funds and other local sources in targeted cases to bridge funding gaps and that several large signature park projects will soon move to construction bids.

The city provided project handouts to the board and said a project-status website will be updated monthly to reflect completed phases, current procurement steps, and next milestones.

The board did not take a formal vote on the bond update; staff requested the board’s questions and said they would return with updated information each month.