By DAVID FISCHER Associated Press
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Basketball players who frequent a South Florida park feel like they’re being run off in favor of wealthy residents of a new luxury development.
The city of Fort Lauderdale is planning to replace the decades-old, beachside basketball courts with pickleball courts, part of a deal with developers for a massive condo and hotel project.
Local basketball players have generated a groundswell of support online, but city officials and developers have said the changes are part of larger improvement plan for the park that now includes building new basketball courts several hundred yards away.
Unpleasant surprise
Ozzie McRea said most people who use the basketball courts only found out about the changes to Fort Lauderdale Beach Park in April. He helped organize a group called Fort Lauderdale Beach Ballers to preserve the courts, located just a few dozen steps from the Atlantic Ocean.
“We saw a sign put up that says that there was going to be a conversion from a basketball court to a pickleball court,” McRea said. “And that raised a lot of flags, and it was a very surreal moment, because everybody that’s seen that sign, you see that their heart just dropped like out of nowhere.”
McRea said the message is clear: developers want to change the demographics of the area, allowing condo residents to use the public park across the street as a private club where working-class and diverse people aren’t welcome.
“It’s a very multicultural atmosphere out here. We have people from all ages, every ethnicity,” McRea said. “And it’s a beautiful thing because we all come in harmony over here. We all play basketball.”
Some advocates have linked the old basketball courts to the Civil Rights Movement and the push to desegregate the beaches. Photographs show basketball courts on Fort Lauderdale beach in the 1960s, but local historians believe those courts were in a different location. The current courts were likely installed at least a decade or so later.
Making a deal
Fort Lauderdale city commissioners approved a deal with developers in January 2024 for the construction of The St. Regis Resort & Residences Bahia Mar. The $2 billion project includes four residential towers and a hotel tower next to an existing marina on city-owned land under a 100-year lease.
Developers agreed to pay $1 million for improvements at the park, including replacing what they described as dilapidated and rarely used basketball courts with pickleball courts.
These types of public-private partnerships are nothing new.
Maria Ilcheva, a Florida International University professor with a focus in public policy, said partnerships between local governments and private companies have become more common over the past two decades in South Florida and other places around the U.S. with growing populations and rapid development. She said there’s nothing inherently bad about these agreements, and governments can often negotiate improvements to transportation, parks and other infrastructure in exchange for a project’s approval.
“If these partnerships take into account the local context and ensure that the community benefits from it, they could be a value,” Ilcheva said. “If they don’t take into account community perspectives and don’t take a broader look at how it will impact values and how it could potentially incentivize or push out local residents, they could be detrimental to the community.”
Moving, not removing
Fort Lauderdale Commissioner Steve Glassman said while the developer is paying for park improvements, it will remain city property and accessible to the public.
Glassman said it was all part of an agenda item that passed unanimously, with no opposition from the public during the meeting.
When community members began raising concerns earlier this year, Glassman said the city worked with developers to plan new basketball courts several hundred yards away at the other end of the park.
“We’ve got the pickleball, we’ve got the basketball, we’ve got new fitness equipment, we’ve got new picnic tables, new grills,” Glassman said. “So we’re not removing the basketball courts, we’re moving the basketball courts.”
But the Beach Ballers have their doubts, concerned that plans for the new basketball courts might be abandoned after the old courts are gone. The group is also supporting separate efforts to formally designate the park as a historically significant archaeological site. Experts believe the park was the site of a 19th century fort used during the Seminole Wars.
“We feel that there’s no reason to move these courts,” McRea said. “If they want to add something, wherever they think they want to relocate these basketball courts, that’s where they should relocate the pickleball courts.”
Too far along
Developer Jimmy Tate said he’d be happy to resolve the entire situation by keeping the basketball courts where they are and putting the pickleball courts elsewhere. But they’ve already pre-sold several dozen condos and created millions of dollars in marketing materials, including a giant model, that show pickleball courts.
“We can’t do that right now, there’s just too much out there, and we can’t have anything that’s misrepresenting facts for any contract,” he said.
Tate rejected the idea that he’s trying to deny beach access to anyone based on race or socioeconomic status. He thinks opposition has less to do with the basketball courts and more to do with a small group of people who have opposed any redevelopment at the Bahia Mar for years, even derailing attempts by two previous developers.
He said the fact that the city and developers have committed to brand new basketball courts at the same park proves the opposition is not really about the courts.
“Here’s the irony, I played basketball my whole life,” Tate said. “I don’t play pickleball.”