FOLLOW me on my popular Twitter feed. Just click this photo! @hbbtruth - David - Common sense on #Politics #PublicPolicy #Sports #PopCulture in USA, Great Britain, Sweden and France, via my life in #Texas #Memphis #Miami #IU #Chicago #DC #FL 🛫🌍📺📽️🏈. Photo is of Elvis and Joan Blackman in 'Blue Hawaii'

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Showing posts with label Downtown Hollywood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Downtown Hollywood. Show all posts

Thursday, January 16, 2020

Looking ahead at Hallandale Beach/Hollywood Blog to everything in 2020 that we'll be analyzing, discovering, examining and writing about with our customary nuanced and fact-filled way, including news via new platforms to better inform the public in South Florida and beyond in ways they can better use, appreciate, and share with others so that more people are in-the-know.

Looking ahead at Hallandale Beach/Hollywood Blog to everything in 2020 that we'll be analyzing, discovering, examining and writing about with our customary nuanced and fact-filled way, including news via new platforms to better inform the public in South Florida and beyond in ways they can better use, appreciate, and share with others so that more people are in-the-know.


My 2019 photo of the Andrew Antonaccio mural at 1900 Hollywood Blvd. in Downtown Hollywood, featuring da Vinci's Mona Lisa masterpiece. I've been using this photo at the top of my blog since the summer of 2019 to replace the by now familiar photo of the iconic rainbow-colored Hallandale Beach Water Tower on State Road A1A that I've been using on the blog since starting it in 2007.


My photo of July 6, 2019 of the Fabio Onrack mural a few blocks farther west in Downtown Hollywood at 2050 Hollywood Blvd., on S. 21st Avenue, just south of Hollywood Blvd. 
It features iconic 20th Century artists Salvador Dali, Frida Kahlo and Jean-Michel Basquiat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=83&v=jDmHyUhxu_8&feature=emb_logo

Today I'm looking ahead and talking out loud about some of the things in 2020 we'll be analyzing, covering, discovering, examining and writing about with our customary nuanced and fact-filled way.
It'll also feature news about some new-and-improved platforms to better inform the public in South Florida and beyond about some important matters of public concern in ways they can better appreciate, use and share with others.

Fortunately, many people in our area have perches that allow us to take a long (term) view and not the all-so-familiar, myopic takes on the news and events that far too much of South Florida's news media seems to prefer for reasons of their own involving either laziness, lack of due diligence, or confusion on whether they are journalists or publicists.
That's a REAL pernicious problem in South Florida, especially with reporters under the age of forty.
Too many seem to prefer shallow takes completely lacking historical context or intellectual heft that are instantly forgettable.

Like nearly everything that appears in the troubled and bias-laden Miami New Times, once actually voluminous and fun to read, to which can't seem to see straight out of its inability to treat people fairly, and not write pieces based strictly on personal/political spite or animus.
Almost everything written there reeks of indignation, much of it of the know-it-all kind that sells in places where everyone calls for diversity yet always agrees.
That's called consensus, not diversity. 




Just so you know, there will be a LOT of interesting news, commentary and insight about Hollywood, Hallandale Beach and Broward govt./political/public policy doings coming the next few weeks, so don't think I've taken the holidays off. No. I've been busy writing away and putting my little nuggets of information into storage until the holidays were over and people were of a mind to start reading things that are not frivolous.

Usually, but not always, at the Panera Bread on Sheridan Road in Hollywood, not far from where I live these days, as opposed to the days I lived in Hollywood Lakes on Wiley Street and just north of Young Circle on Filmore Street, west of U.S.-1








That necessarily includes returning to the antics of Wednesday Hallandale Beach City Commission meetings at 5:30 pm due to the return and reboot of Joy Cooper to the local political scene. I anticipate some antics and melodrama, since all that time away from the passing scene has got to have built up quite a lot of need in her to show everyone what's what.
Certainly that's what the South Florida news media is expecting, so I expect they'll be more likely to actually show up when something important is going on instead of the sillier issues that drew them like flies the past 2-3 years. Which is all to the good. 

 I'll be there more often, too, to observe and report back here with what's what, including some news about an expensive financial fiasco the HB CRA is involved in that will likely explode in February unless cooler heads prevail.
Slim odds of that if you've seen who's at Hallandale Beach City Hall these days.

I hope to be able to be finished writing some positive stories I've started regarding some dynamic new entrepreneurs who have come to the area and who are making a very positive difference in the general attitude of things hereabouts as it concerns satisfying customers. 

Like my marketing-savvy friend, John Wiltsey, who worked so successfully for so many years for the fashion house Chanel, which included LOTS of traveling to fascinating luxurious places I've only read about and seen photos of but where lots of hard work goes on, too, according to him.
John's dream turned reality in Downtown Hollywood late this past summer with the opening of
Camp Cocktail Bar + Grill, on the corner of Hollywood Blvd. and N. 21st Avenue, at 2051-B Hollywood Blvd.
That's the same block on the north side of Hollywood Blvd. where popular GoBistro! and it's newer brother, GoGai! is located, as well as Tasta Gelato & Cafeteria. 



2051-B Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, Florida 33020
+1 (754) 263-1175
campcocktailbar@gmail.com

I first profiled Tasta Gelato and its five owners, longtime childhood friends from Italy and Sicily, back in October of 2016, over three years ago, even before they officially opened, when I was able to get a behind-the-scenes view, with lots of photos, and was able to tell how and why they chose to locate in Downtown Hollywood over many other possible sites throughout the U.S., including, naturally, South Beach.





https://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2016/10/how-why-italys-tastagelatos-first.html

Other people who've made a VERY positive impression on me since I returned to Hollywood last April include Craig Avera and Rose White, the owners of Cali Coffee just north of Sheridan Road on N. 29th Avenue, west of 1-95, in front of the Holiday Inn Ft. Lauderdale-Airport. 



2650 N. 29th Aveue, Hollywood, Florida 33020
+1 (954) 251-3274
https://calicoffee.net/
https://www.instagram.com/calicoffeeofficial/
+1 (954) 251-3274
Open 5 AM – 10 PM

In the near-future you'll be reading here about how Craig and Rose's business has succeeded in ways they could not have imagined, and how that very success will lead them in 2019 to open two other Cali Coffee locations in Broward County, and what's behind that expansion. 
I know the locations, but you'll get no reveals from me right now.

Over the last few months, once fall finally got here, there has been Antonio Cao, owner of Cao Bakery & Cafe, who I had the opportunity to speak with both before he opened his new location, and during a little community sneak peak when the neighborhood and many area civic activists could get together and check it out.
The new location has their official Grand Opening next Thursday, the 23rd, at 5 pm!


Above, Hollywood Park East Civic Association President Tom Lander and Hollywood Mayor Josh Levy, with microphone, on the night of December 17th, when Cao opened for a few hours to give some members of the Hollywood community a sneak peak of things to come and food to be savored.
I made sure to sample everything that could be sampled. 
A few times!








A huge thanks to our friends and supporters, especially the people have stuck thru since the heat and humidity of last summer: Mark at Mickey Byrnes Irish Pub, and Jimmy at The Greek Joint.
I'm so appreciative for them being supportive of our efforts at Hallandale Beach/Hollywood Blog ever since we returned to Hollywood in late April, with the idea of continuing to get more useful and original news, information, context and informed commentary out to you, however you choose to receive it online.

 I also hope to soon be announcing some new dynamic advertisers to the blog very soon, including some new businesses in Hollywood, Hallandale Beach and throughout South Florida that have people are talking about in positive tones! Some restaurants and real estate projects and even maybe something for those of you who own pets...

2020 is going to be an amazing year in many respects, including two areas that occupy so muc of my time, sports and politics, starting off with a Super Bowl at Hard Rock Stadium in less than three weeks that will bring lots of excited and curious visitors to our area -though not as many non-game fun activities as I hoped we'd see in Hollywood- plus, a great Summer Olympics in Tokyo to look forward to, plus national, state, county and city elections.

 In case you didn't know, the Orange Bowl Committee will be hosting a Bowl Championship Series (BCS) National Championship game next January at Hard Rock Stadium, and just like last night's game in New Orleans between Clemson and LSU, that game in 12 months in South Florida will bring tens of thousands more excited people from all over the U.S. to our perch in the world, most of whom won;t even have tickets to the game but who just want to enjoy the spectacle and the partying going on beforehand. That's what college loyalty does!

I've got a number of interesting out-of-town and even overseas trips to look forward to over the next 12 months, details of which you will be reading plenty about here in the weeks beforehand. That includes one up to Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, a place that I have never visited before, despite having read about it in books and magazines and seen it in TV shows and films for many decades.

I'll be there not to see the sights so much as to see my brilliant and very talented niece Jenny play for the Yale Bulldogs Women's Lacrosse team, where she is a freshman this year after starting the past  four years for one of the top high school lacrosse programs in the U.S., where she and her Glenelg Gladiators won three Maryland state championships in their division. 
That trip to New Haven is going to be both a fun and surreal experience after everything I have ever known, read and seen in tru and fictitious films centered on Yale, 

 Plus, at North Miami Beach Senior High, I had a friend and classmate in most of my many AP classes who became our valedictorian my senior year, and he chose to get out of Dodge and away from the heat and humidity of South Florida, while I chose the Midwest and Indiana University.

And in February we'll be firing up our YouTube Channel and Instagram again in the new year after a lot of inactivity, and start sharing some very useful non-text information and news with you in some interesting ways that you'll value and want to share with your friends in the area and elsewhere.  



I should also mention that I have recently downloaded WhatsApp again, so those of you who communicate with me fairly often via my cell phoen number will now have a way of knowing what, if anything, is on my mind from any one hour to another, via checking out my WhatsApp status page.
I decided I needed to be more affirmative about what I was doing or thinking since so many people tell me after-thefact, "I wish you'd told me about THAT at the time."
Well, you now have your wish!




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Monday, September 30, 2019

#HollywoodFL updates re Public Parking @ Hollywood Beach; possible walking police patrols in Downtown Hollywood from Friday thru Sunday nights; news re the University Station redevelopment; Have a feeling all of these issues will come up Tuesday night at Comm. Peter Hernandez's 6:30 pm Town Hall mtg at the Lippman Center

#HollywoodFL re Public parking @ Hollywood Beach, possible walking police patrols in Downtown Hollywood from Friday thru Sunday nights, news re the University Station redevelopment...
Have a feeling all of these issues will come up Tuesday night at Comm. Peter Hernandez's 6:30 pm Town Hall mtg at the Lippman Center

First, from city's press release:
District 2 Town Hall Meeting
Tuesday, October 1
District 2 Commissioner Peter Hernandez is hosting a Town Hall Meeting on Tuesday, October 1 from 6:30 to 8:30 pm at the Fred Lippman Multi-Purpose Center at 2030 Polk Street in Hollywood. 
Find out about septic to sewer conversion and water infrastructure replacement in the Royal Poinciana area. There will also be information about downtown security (roving patrols) and low to moderate income availability of city funds. Refreshments will be provided. 
For more information, contact Commissioner Hernandez at 954.247.7136 or the Office of the 
Mayor and Commissioners at 954.921.3321  

The unmentioned good news in that press release is that my friend Claude Luciani, stalwart Hollywood animal supporter and owner of Pizza Rustica in Downtown Hollywood, located opposite two of the most popular places in all of Hollywood -and I'm happy to say, advertisers on my blog!- The Greek Joint and Mickey Byrne's Irish Pub & Restaurant, will be bringing examples of his oh-so delicious pizza 🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕 at the meeting, so be sure to bring your pizza taste buds.
But leave plenty for me, as I love Claude's pizza! 🍕
1. re Public parking @ Hollywood Beach.

The issues at stake here are self-evident but please read the full thread. 




2. re possibility of evening walking police patrols in Downtown Hollywood.

First my tweets and then some discussion of perceived safety problems and a possible solution.

As most of you know, over the course of a typical month, I go to all kinds of public meetings at Hollywood City Hall, as well as to numerous Civic Association meetings being held throughout the city, so I can keep tabs on the evolving concerns of the city's residents and Small Business owners.
But I also spend a lot of time during the week in Downtown Hollywood in the afternoons and evenings -and not just on weekends- talking to individual owners and managers of restaurants, bars, retail shops, boutiques as well as office buildings about their concerns about Hollywood in general and the Downtown area in particular.
People who, despite having lenty of choices to do so elsewhere, have personally decided to invest themselves emotionally and financially in Hollywood's Downtown area, and want it to be much better, safer and more-interesting than it currently is or has been in the past.

 They are long past tired of hearing excuses, alibis and unkept promises to "fix things."
Simply put, they are also not buying the popular perception hereabouts that you really can't force the City of Hollywood or the Hollywood CRA or Broward County or FDOT to acknowledge, recognize and actually resolve problems with anything under some six-month projection.

 Over the past few years, but most especially the past year, both during the 9-10 months while I was out-of-town, and then after I returned to Hollywood in late April, these same stakeholders who are invested in so many ways in this city's success, have expressed themselves to me in increasingly angry and ominous tones about what they feel is going on now.
They are particularly upset about how this past summer's business seemed especially dead, with few events going on in the city that would attract genuine crowds of visitors and consumers to the larger area as a whole, not just to the immediate area around Young Circle.

 So, despite some positive developments over the past year, including the introduction of some new businesses and eager faces, like my talented photography friend, Noël de Christián, who opened up an amazing gallery bearing his name a few months ago on the west side of S. 20th Avenue, and my friend John Wiltsey, who last month opened up his Camp Cocktail Bar + Grill on the corner of  N. 21st Avenue and Hollywood Blvd., many Downtown stakeholders feel like there is a palpable sense of complacency among the local powers-that-be that can simply not be allowed to continue moving forward.
Some dynamic changes in attitude and behavior are needed lest these ingrained public perceptions among Hollywood and regional residents go unchallenged and continue to grow.

 To these stakeholders, there's a very strong public perception among both Hollywood residents as well as from nearby cities, that too many parts of the Downtown area are not as safe as they
should be. And perception IS reality, whatever the actual Hollywood criminal statistics may say.

 To be honest, I've personally been stopped DOZENS of times over the past six months by either Hollywood residents or visitors/tourists who did not understand why there were seemingly uniformed Hollywood Police officers in the Downtown area every night who seemed to always congregate on Hollywood Blvd. -and take up too much space there- yet who never venture more than ten feet away from their patrol cars.
To paraphrase, "Why don't they stop leaning on those damn cars and actually walk around and
see what's going on and stop trouble before it happens?"

I've explained every time, often until I simply can't repeat myself again, that in most cases, these police officers were/are "off-duty," and there because they are detailed to a specific business that 
is paying for that, and thus, not "on-duty," per se.
As you might imagine, though true, this response of mine tends not to either placate or delight 
most people.
They just shake their heads and say that they visit plenty of other cities in South Florida and the 
rest of the state where they see walking police patrols at night and why can't that happen here 
in Hollywood.

Just so you know, over the past few years, an increasing number of the successful people I know 
who live in the Hollywood Lakes area have felt emboldened to tell me that they personally feel like 
they are safer and have more choices of things to do if they go to Aventura, Sunny Isles, Bal Harbour 
or up to certain Fort Lauderdale-area neighborhoods.
They tell me they wish they were spending that money in Hollywood, but that their perception is 
what it is, and until they see some kind of tangible sign that the city and the CRA are changing it, 
why should they alter their behavior and go there with their spouses or families?

I should mention that women seem to find the current reality even more ridiculous than men, 
which given where the city's two public parking garages are located, in not-always bustling areas 
at night, perhaps explains itself.

"David, do they even have operating cameras in the public parking garages?"
People consistently tell me the answer is NO, so perhaps that is something simple that 
the city and CRA should explore changing, since many woman I've spoken to feel the 
public garages are just as likely a site with potential for harm for themselves and their 
guests as any other spot in the Downtown area. That perception must change.

Towards that end, over the past few months, District 2 Commissioner Peter Hernandez and many Downtown business owners have been calling for the city to institute nighttime walking patrols in the Downtown area to assuage people's reasonable beliefs and directly change those self-evident public perceptions about public safety.
Last week at the CRA HQ on Harrison Street, I was one of about two dozen interested parties at the latest meeting Comm. Hernandez has held since June with downtown business owners about their concerns. CRA Executive Director Jorge Camejo was also there as he was at previous meetings, along with a few reps from the Hollywood Police Dept..

The possibility of having these nighttime walking patrols, at least on Friday, Saturday and Sunday 
nights, was broached once again.
I think there's a reasonable possibility that the CRA may be willing to put some money forward to help pay for those costs, but it will not happen unless the public wants it and expresses themselves to the people who will actually be deciding the matter, that is, the seven members of the Hollywood City Commission/CRA Board of Directors.

---------------------------------------------------
3. news re University Station redevelopment



Redevelopment Opportunity University Station

Univ Station redev opp

Hollywood Accepting Proposals for the Redevelopment of University Station Site

The City of Hollywood, Florida, received an unsolicited proposal submitted under the provisions of Section 255.065, Florida Statutes, Public-Private Partnerships, for “University Station” to finance, develop, construct and manage an urban, mixed-use project on approximately 2.5 acres of City-owned real estate in Downtown Hollywood. The City-owned site is located along a major north/south corridor known as the Dixie Highway/Florida East Coast Railway Corridor, between Fillmore, Taylor, and Polk Streets, and adjacent to N. 21st Avenue (“Site”). The Site currently houses the City of Hollywood’s Shuffleboard Center and Courts, a public parking/DocumentCenter/View/16458/University_Station_Barry_University_Lease lot and a repurposed former fire station that is leased to Barry University College of Nursing & Health Sciences. The Site is also located within the Downtown District of the City’s Community Redevelopment Agency.
The City has published the required legal notice of the acceptance of an unsolicited proposal under the provision of 255.065 and is willing to accept other proposals to finance, develop, construct and manage an urban, mixed-use project on this property. Competitive proposals should be for an innovative, mixed-use, market-driven concept that takes full advantage of the Site. The City has determined the unsolicited proposal is sufficient for consideration on a preliminary basis and will accept other proposals for the same project during this notification period. No final decision has been made relative to selecting any proposal for this site.



Last Tuesday, September 24th, from just before 3 pm until about 5:15, I was at Hollywood City Hall in Room 421, up on the locked floor, for the City of Hollywood's Evaluation Committee meeting re the P3/University Station redevelopment project that both Pinnacle Housing Group and Housing Trust Group, LLC want.

The public notice was only put up before 3 pm the day before, after I had already been at City Hall around lunch time. To be honest, I was very suspicious that something fishy was happening, since for just barely 24 hours to lapse between an announcement and an actual meeting is very unusual in Hollywood, though was not so uncommon in Hallandale Beach during the lamentable reign of Joy Cooper, with the goal of keeping the public out of the room and in the dark. :-(

Public perception-wise, it seemed to me to be an especially bad move, too, especially for such an important project that has the potential to help positively transform the Downtown Hollywood corridor area from the FEC train tracks going back east to US-1, as was so often
repeated at the meeting itself.
I was the first person in the meeting room not on the Eval Comm. or with a business interest in it, though there was one person there already monitoring it on behalf of one party's attorney.

Right before the meeting started, literally, while outside the door and standing next to the window that offers an interesting aerial view of the immediate area to the east, I called my friend, North Central Civic Association president Patricia "Patty" Antrican, who has talked to
me about this project for many months, and asked her to come by if she could, though I knew she'd likely still be busy because North Central was having its monthly meeting that night, and I assumed Patty was still trying to add some public speakers to the agenda for her typically large crowd of very concerned residents and business owners to hear over at the Lippman Center later.
Fortunately, she was able to get over there pretty quick and caught most of the Eval. Comm.'s discussions and points about what they thought about the two parties eager to control that property with so much potential for being a dynamic force in the city.

Patty and I, as well as anybody paying close attention, knows that the tract under discussion there, offers lots of interesting possibilities, and a chance to reshape those public perceptions about what was and is possible in Hollywood, especially if there's a train station nearby that allows residents to easily go points north and south on the FEC tracks towards Downtown Miami and Fort Lauderdale.

As regular readers of my 12-year old blog know, I've attended dozens of transportation meetings over the years, most though not all about the proposed Tri-Rail Coastal line that is my preferred choice because it services the largest number of people and accomplished a VERY POSITIVE public policy goal -mobility. Increased ease of travel

I am not at all sold on the idea of having that location be a Virgin Train stop for the train north to Fort Lauderdale, West Paln Beach and eventually, Orlando, and south to Miami, since tickets would be so much more expensive and draw a fraction of the public of what those well-located tracks will bear.

I took about 9 pages of copious notes about what was said, and will soon post some of them to the blog about it in depth.
But for now, it was clear to me that the two most important of several concerns expressed were:
1.) Whether the two groups were prepared to be a key and vocal part of the referendun process if they are selected and get it thru a purchase instead of a lease, as they would prefer, and,
2.) What would Pinnacle's level of interest in constructing the market rate building component of the project still exit if they did not get the available tax credits within two years?

I reconfirmed this afternoon with Hollywood Procurement Dept. Director Paul Bassar that the Oral Evaluations for Pinnacle and HTG will be next Monday, October 7th, at Hollywood City Hall in Room 215, starting at 1:30 p.m. and likely ending about 4:30 pm or so.
I strongly suggest you bring some caffeine and something to munch on!


ICYMI: My last blog post was this!
Can development and historic Downtown #HollywoodFL co-exist? Current public pushback against possible demolition of a historic Hollywood Bank Bldg. to make way for the Soleste
Hollywood project, makes one wonder whether it can or not 

 Dave
David B. Smith

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