Tamarac Commissioners Approve New Apartment Complex After Earlier “No” Vote

by Kevin Deutsch July 11, 2024

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Tamarac Commissioners Approve New Apartment Complex and Restaurant

The Advantis Tamarac project rendering. {Advantis}

Tamarac’s city commission recently approved the construction plan for a new 278-unit apartment building and restaurant at the site of the former Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen.

No commission members made comments about the reasoning behind their “yes” votes during a June 26 meeting, which followed a May 8 meeting at which commissioners voted down the project.

According to city records, the Advantis Tamarac project will be a six-story luxury apartment building with a parking garage combined with 3,246 square feet of space for a restaurant at 7951 W. Commercial Blvd. No potential tenants for the restaurant space have been announced.

Twenty-eight of the building’s apartments will be reserved for “workforce housing,” with income restrictions designed to make those units more affordable.

The city commission voted 4-0 to approve the project during a quasi-judicial hearing at its June 26 meeting. Vice Mayor Morey Wright, who attended the meeting, was absent during the vote.

At the May 8 meeting, Mayor Michelle Gomez and Commissioner Kicia Daniel voted to move forward with the project, while Commissioner Elvin Villalobos, Commissioner Marlon Bolton, and Wright voted “no.”

The project was proposed by Prospect Real Estate Group.

“I love the project,” Daniel said on May 8. “It will change the demographics on Commercial. Instead of homeless, now we’d have people who actually pay rent and it brings up our income.”

“Let’s change and actually step out to what we said we want and we believe in,” Daniel told her fellow commissioners. “We can’t vote ‘no’ on everything when you actually have a good project in front of you.”

The three-acre project site was formerly Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen, which closed in 2022.

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Kevin Deutsch

Kevin Deutsch is an award-winning journalist and author of two nonfiction books. He covers general assignment news and Jewish community issues for Talk Media. He has also worked as a staff writer at The Miami Times, the Rio Grande SUN, the New York Daily News, Newsday, The Miami Herald, The Palm Beach Post, The Riverdale Press, and Bronx Justice News.