HRT for Women in Oakland, FL

Nearly a year after water damage forced the Mai-Kai Restaurant and Polynesian Show to shut down for extensive repairs, its owners announced Tuesday night that the restaurant has found investors to help reopen in Oakland Park.

“The Mai-Kai will reopen!” wrote the Thornton Family, longtime owners of the Mai-Kai on their Facebook page Tuesday night. “We can’t wait to welcome you back … but until then, please stay turned for updates on the restoration and repairs.”

The announcement ends nearly a year of uncertainty about whether the tiki time capsule would survive.

The Mai-Kai has partnered with the Barlington Group, a Miami-based commercial developer whose tenants include Toasted Bagelry & Deli and multiple Little Havana business such as Blackbird Ordinary, Ball & Chain, 8 Burger and Little Havana Cigar Factory.

The restaurant has also partnered with Mad Room Hospitality, owners of iconic Eighth Street spots Ball & Chain, Los Altos and Taqueria El Mexicano.

The social-media post gave no indication when the Mai-Kai might reopen or the extent of its repairs, which are “extensive,” a business broker told the Sun Sentinel in January.

The family-owned restaurant shut down Oct. 25 after tropical-storm flooding and a busted sprinkler pipe in the kitchen ripped a pickup truck-size hole in the roof and stuck the family with costly bills.

“It was this perfect storm of bad luck and too much flooding,” Mai-Kai family member Kern Mattei said of the damage last December. “I knew right away we couldn’t open. The only silver lining was it happened when we were closed and no one was hurt.”

Ever since, Mai-Kai owners have deliberated how to reopen the 26,000-square-foot restaurant – and how to pay for it – and began seeking buyers to help revive the historic building.

“Once you exceed a certain level of damage, there are life-safety issues,” Stephanie Toothaker, a Fort Lauderdale attorney for the owners, told the Sun Sentinel in January. “To make it more complicated, you’ve got a 64-year-old restaurant that doesn’t meet current building codes.”

Property records show the Mai-Kai building is worth at least $3.97 million while the land – which includes a rear, 150-space parking lot – is valued at $570,000.

“Our search came to an end when we met their team and recognized the passion they share for honoring and preserving the legacy of the Mai-Kai,” the Thornton family wrote on Facebook, referring to Barlington Group and Mad Room Hospitality.

Brothers and tikiholics Bob and Jack Thornton opened the Mai-Kai on Dec. 26, 1956, on a then-desolate stretch of Federal Highway for $300,000, said to be the most expensive restaurant built that year. An intoxicating hub for Rum Runners, Mai Tais and other tropical kitsch in a glass, the Mai-Kai’s ability to draw levelheaded folks under its tipsy spell has only grown stronger over the decades.

This is a developing story, so check back for updates. Click here to have breaking news alerts sent directly to your inbox.

Today Spirit Airlines announced that it will add new summer seasonal nonstop service between Oakland International Airport (OAK) and Fort Lauderdale International (FLL) starting April 1, 2020. This is great news for Bay Area bargain hunters with plans to visit South Florida as well as the several destinations in the Caribbean and Latin America to which Spirit flies during summer vacation.

Checking today, Oakland-Ft. Lauderdale fares are as low as $174 roundtrip this winter — that's quite a deal for a transcontinental trip. But, as usual, you'll find plenty of the restrictions and fees for which Spirit is famous. Spirit's fleet of Airbus jets are easily recognized due to their banana-yellow color (See slideshow above).

Spirit will not be the only player in the Bay Area-to-Fort Lauderdale market. JetBlue and United also offer year-round nonstops to the South Florida city from San Francisco International, but their fares are significantly higher. Alaska's SFO-FLL nonstops end in April. Like Spirit, JetBlue runs many of its Caribbean and Latin American flights from Fort Lauderdale, too. This means it's going to be a lot cheaper and easier for Bay Area travelers to get to those regions.

Currently there are no nonstop flights from the Bay Area to anywhere in the Caribbean and South America. The closest you can get with a nonstop is on Copa Airlines' SFO-Panama City (PTY) nonstop, or on a United nonstop to Cancun.

Related: One-on-one with Spirit Air CEO Ted Christie

Spirit's outbound flight from OAK is a red eye, departing at 9:30 p.m. and arriving at FLL at 6 a.m. the next day. The return departs FLL at 5:30 p.m. and arrives in Oakland at 8:45 p.m. Checking fares today, it appears that Spirit's one-stop fares to FLL are significantly cheaper than its nonstops, but that could change.

Fort Lauderdale is also a huge point of embarkation for many cruise lines, which is a big reason why there are now three airlines flying there from the Bay Area. Only American Airlines offers year-round nonstop flights from the Bay Area to Miami International, about 25 miles south of FLL. United's SFO-MIA nonstops don't run during summer months.

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Spirit began flying from Oakland in 2011 with a single flight to Las Vegas (LAS) and gradually grew to third place among Oakland’s largest carriers. The new daily Fort Lauderdale flight joins existing summer seasonal service to Chicago (ORD), Detroit (DTW), Houston (IAH) and year-round twice daily flights to Los Angeles (LAX) and four daily flights to Las Vegas.

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In an interview with SFGATE last year, we asked CEO Ted Christie about Spirit's well-known tight seating, which could be a big factor on a 5-6 hour transcon flight. He said, "The average pitch on our planes is around 29 inches. We do offer The Big Front Seat, which has 34 inches. And exit rows, too, have more space. But we don't think about pitch, we think about comfort. Modern seat technology, like slimline seating and contouring of the seat back, has freed up space between seats that did not exist before. I'm 6'2" and I sit in row 3 or 4 on our planes and I'm comfortable because the way the seatback is designed is that it naturally contours around your knees [and bows into the space between your legs]. So I can sit normally."

You can check out the seat layout and customer reviews of Spirit's all-Airbus fleet on SeatGuru here.

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Chris McGinnis is the founder of TravelSkills.com. The author is solely responsible for the content above, and it is used here by permission. You can reach Chris at chris@travelskills.com or on Twitter @cjmcginnis.

Plans to redevelop part of downtown Oakland Park are moving forward, with the commissioners agreeing to sell about 4 acres of city-owned properties to a development team for $11.2 million.

The Oakland Park City Commission last week gave initial approval to a contract with Horizon of Oakland Park LLC, a joint venture of Falcone Group and Kaufman Lynn Construction, to build a mixed-use development that would have as many as 319 apartments.

The price is $1.4 million above the highest appraisal of downtown properties bordered by Northeast 38th Street to the north, Northeast 36th Street to the south, Northeast 13th Avenue to the east, and Northeast 12th Avenue to the west. The properties include the existing city hall, which is across Northeast 12th Avenue from the Florida East Coast (FEC) railroad where Brightline trains operate.

The joint venture can close the deal only after obtaining site plan approval and building permits for the mixed-use development on the site that includes city hall, which will be relocated.

The Falcone-Kaufmann joint venture is negotiating to also buy two adjacent properties that would enlarge their downtown project, according to a city staff memorandum. One is a 0.7-acre property near the corner of Northeast 12th Avenue and 38th Street. The other is a 0.6-acre property next to the Omega Church property, a city-owned structure at 1300 Northeast 38th Street.

Another possible component of the downtown project is construction of a Brightline train station across the street from the existing city hall. A study by the Florida Department of Transportation recommended Oakland Park as one of six stops on the east side of Broward County for commuter train service on the FEC railroad, potentially from Tri-Rail, which runs trains on tracks farther west with suburban stops in Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade counties.

Boca Raton-based Falcone Group, led by Art Falcone, and Delray Beach-based Kaufman Lynn, led by President and CEO Michael Kaufman, have agreed to build or to help fund a downtown train station if the city gets commuter rail service.

“With the federal infrastructure money, the stars are aligned for it to happen. But it’s possible they are going to close on this property before they know for a fact that the train is coming,” said Ken Krasnow, vice chairman of institutional services for the Florida region of Colliers. His firm has been working with the city on its downtown redevelopment project.

Colliers helped the City of Oakland Park issue in August 2021 a public request for qualifications to redevelop the downtown properties, which drew responses from 12 development teams. Five of the 12 teams got a subsequent request for proposals, or RFP, soliciting plans to redevelop the downtown properties, and three of the five submitted proposals.

In March, commissioners authorized city staff to negotiate agreements with the Falcone-Kaufman joint venture after a selection committee ranked their RFP proposal as the best.

If they enlarge the redevelopment site from about 4 acres to 6 acres by acquiring adjacent properties, Falcone Group and Kaufman Lynn plan to build two mixed-use buildings, one with six stories, the other with five, and a three-story residential building. The buildings would have a combined total of 319 apartments, about 34,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space, and 47,800 square feet of commercial space.

Alternate plans for the three-building complex excluding either the train station or the 0.7-acre adjacent property on Northeast 38th Street have a smaller number of rental units, or as few as 284.

Falcone Group and Kaufman Lynn agreed to designate 10 percent of the units as affordable housing for five years, with below-market rents reserved for tenants earning 120 percent to 140 percent of area median income. The developers also agreed to reserve 18 percent of the subcontracts for local contractors to build the three-building downtown complex, which will cost an estimated $148 million to build, including land costs.

The city commission is scheduled to vote during its Aug. 3 meeting whether to grant final approval to the purchase and sale contract on second reading, and whether to approve a development agreement with the Falcone-Kaufmann joint venture for the downtown project.

The developers are required to make earnest money payments totaling $1.2 million prior to closing the $11.2 million acquisition of the downtown site. The developers would make three earnest money payments: $450,000 upon execution of the purchase and sale agreement and a development agreement with the city, $450,000 upon final government approval of the site plan, and $300,000 when the city government vacates the existing city hall. The last two are non-refundable payments.

The Falcone-Kaufmann joint venture is expected to close on the city property acquisition by the fall of 2024, and to complete construction of the Oakland Park redevelopment project in 28 months, Krasnow said.

A new city hall will be part of Sky Building, a six-story, mixed-use development that will rise at Dixie Highway at 38th Street in downtown Oakland Park. Sky Building is designed as two buildings, connected at the third level by a pedestrian skybridge, with nearly 40,000 square feet for the new Oakland Park City Hall, about 15,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space, and 140 residential units. The developer of Sky Building is Miami-based NR Investments.

“They should be breaking ground pretty soon,” Krasnow said.

OAKLAND, Fla. - Where have all the peacocks gone? Some community members in Oakland, Florida, a town west of Orlando, are concerned that the number of wild peacocks they normally see has apparently dropped significantly – and they're trying to figure out why.

Maureen Jacobson has lived in Oakland for years, and cannot imagine the town without its familiar feathered friends.

"These animals have been a part of the charm of Oakland since we’ve lived here for 18 years," she told FOX 35. For years, she said she would normally see dozens of peacocks around town – and her yard – on any given day. But in recent weeks, the number has dropped from dozens to less than 10.

What happened? Where did they go?

"Everybody is asking the same question, what happened to the peacocks? We put up signs saying ‘missing peacocks,’ ‘help us find our peacocks.’ People can’t find them," she said.

Carla Song is neighbors with Jacobson, and has lived in Oakland for four years. She has also noticed fewer peacocks.

"I can’t imagine Oakland without the peacocks any more than I can’t imagine Oakland without the oak trees like these," she said.

In Florida, peacocks are not native and are considered an invasive species. Residents are within their rights to remove them from their properties as long as they are relocated properly, according to officials.

So, what happened? It's not immediately known.

Both women do not believe the peacocks are being removed and relocated. Even if so, it isn't clear who would be removing them.

Two possible reasons for the decline they've thought of is either coyotes got to more peacocks, or the feathered friends moved to another town nearby.

"We don’t know if aliens came down and sucked them up. Honestly, people ask really weird questions," Jacobson said.

Either way, they're hoping the rest of the community steps up to help out. They're hoping to declare Oakland a peacock sanctuary. They've created a Facebook group: "Protect the peacocks of Oakland" to keep members updated on their efforts.

"We’re working at this point to get a petition together and get Oakland declared a peacock sanctuary where at least we can keep them safe from any potential trapping," said Song. They're planning to make their peacock sanctuary pitch later this month at the town's next meeting, which is scheduled for Sept. 27 at 7 p.m.

Newrock Partners and Brickbox Development scored a $67.5 million construction loan for an Oakland Park multifamily project.

The 274-unit Project O will be built on the parking lots immediately west of the Kennan Building at 3101 North Federal Highway, as well as west and north of the adjacent office building at 3201 North Federal Highway. The new address will be 333 North Federal Highway, according to Koby Assaraf, Newrock principal.

New York City-based S3 Capital Partners is the lender.

Project O will have a 10-story apartment building with another floor for an enclosed amenity space, and an eight-story garage with 500 spaces next door, according to Assaraf. It will include more than 19,000 square feet of ground-floor retail at the garage and apartment building.

Apartments will range from studios to two-bedrooms.

Construction is tentatively scheduled to start this summer and will take roughly 20 months, he said.

The office buildings will remain on the 4-acre site, and tenants will park at the new garage.

Project O, designed by Kobi Karp, will include a dog park, murals by local artists and a rooftop pool. Its design, wall art and planned tenants will make it an edgy rather than “vanilla” project, not common for Oakland Park, Assaraf said.

Brickbox owner Dan Deitchman and Assaraf, former chief development officer of Miami-based Link Real Estate, restructured the assemblage’s capitalization. The duo last year formed Newrock, which has two other Oakland Park projects.

In December, the group bought the buildings at 3472 Northeast Fifth Avenue and 519 Northeast 34th Street for $3.9 million, and adapted them into Industry | Oakland Park. Future tenants include an enclosed farm, winery, music studio, photography and art studio, Assaraf said. Another tenant will be a kitchen commissary, where chefs of mobile food businesses such as food trucks can prepare and store food. The tenants have signed leases but none has yet opened, Assaraf said.

The Industry I Oakland Park venture is reminiscent of the adaptive reuse that transformed Miami’s Wynwood and Little River, he added.

Newrock’s other Oakland Park development, Project O2, is planned to have 165 apartments and nearly 32,000 square feet of retail at 3339 to 3347 North Federal Highway.

Both Project O and Project O2 were previously approved by the city. But the developers tweaked the design of Project O, and likely will also tweak Project O2, with the goal of seeking permits in the next six months, Assaraf said.