Related Group's Portofino Hollywood Height Vote Set for Sept. 8

Hollywood’s Planning and Development Board meets September 8 to recommend the height, setbacks and total site coverage for Related Group’s Portofino Hollywood tower at 1301 S. Ocean Drive, the specific numbers that will define the building before the City Commission makes them official. Two other multifamily applications sit on the same agenda: a 394-unit project from New York-based Bridge Asset Management on Jackson Street and South Dixie Highway, and a 30-unit building at 2455 Polk Street.

Why it matters

Related already won the underlying fight. The City Commission voted 5-2 in May to amend its development agreement with PRH 1301 S Ocean Drive LLC, a Related affiliate, clearing the way for a 99-year ground lease over city-owned beachfront that now holds a community center, park and public parking. The Live Local Act let the project bypass the site’s Government Use zoning. What was never locked down was the building envelope, and that is what the board recommends Monday, ahead of a final Commission vote. Anyone who wants to weigh in on massing or setbacks on this stretch of Ocean Drive has one public meeting left to do it in.

Bridge Asset Management’s filing matters for a different reason. It is a design and site plan plus a zoning variance for nearly 400 units on a Dixie Highway parcel that still carries 1950s and 1960s office buildings, the kind of underused corridor land Hollywood keeps steering toward redevelopment. Neither Bridge Asset Management nor the applicant behind the Polk Street filing, Joseph B. Kaller working on behalf of Mike Kaplun, appears on our developer watchlist, but Related Group does, and its item is the one worth a developer or agent working South Florida blocking time for.

The numbers

Portofino Hollywood: 27 stories, 124 market-rate condos and 86 workforce rental units under the Live Local Act’s 40 percent set-aside, on a 99-year lease over roughly 3.5 acres. Bridge Asset Management: 394 units and about 282,150 square feet of floor area at 2200 Jackson Street and 400 South Dixie Highway, plus a requested variance. 2455 Polk Street: a 4-story, 45-foot, roughly 29,568-square-foot building with 30 units in the MC-1 district.

What’s next

The board takes up all three items September 8. Its recommendation on Portofino Hollywood’s height and setbacks moves to the City Commission for final adoption; the Bridge Asset Management and Polk Street site plans need board sign-off before either can move to permitting. None of the three has been decided, which leaves Thursday as the last window to get an objection or a show of support into the record.