Hollywood CRA Board Meeting: Harrison Street Streetscape & Beach Stormwater Analysis (Dec 10, 2025)
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The Hollywood Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) Board convened its regular meeting on December 10, 2025, at 9:00 AM. The meeting covered an update on the downtown Harrison Street Streetscape project and a detailed presentation on the beach stormwater and sustainability analysis. Board members discussed flooding issues, directed staff on immediate mitigation strategies, and outlined a comprehensive approach for coordinating with FDOT.
Consent Calendar
- Resolutions approving the minutes of the Regular CRA Meetings on July 2, 2025 (R-CRA-2025-49) and September 3, 2025 (R-CRA-2025-50), and the Special CRA Meeting on September 25, 2025 (R-CRA-2025-51) were approved unanimously.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Bob Gwickman (Hollywood resident) addressed the Board. He complimented the Candy Cane Parade but raised specific issues: (1) potholes on the Hollywood Beach bridge requiring repair; (2) significant delays in receiving a check reimbursement for a Broadwalk Paint Project grant; and (3) critical failures in the maintenance of backflow preventers and floodgates, along with a deteriorating FDOT A1A underground drainage system, which he argued are directly contributing to severe flooding in the area.
Discussion Items
- Harrison Street Streetscape Update (Item 8): Deputy Director Susan Goldberg, project manager Nick Fasulo (Burkhart Construction), and Francisco Diaz (CRA) presented the status. Phase 1 is substantially complete (85-90%) but awaits landscaping, light poles (expected March 2026), and crash-rated bollards. A major discussion point was the unanticipated requirement for Florida-engineered sealed drawings for the bollards, requiring re-excavation of completed sidewalk work in Phases 1 and 2. Board members Hernandez and Biederman expressed strong frustration over this planning failure and the impact on beach businesses. Executive Director George Keller committed to immediately expediting the engineering certification with the Building Department to integrate the bollards in future phases.
- Stormwater and Sustainability Analysis (Item 9): Engineer John Goldman (CDM Smith) presented modeling results demonstrating that four contiguous pump stations drastically reduce flood depths and durations, while the City-installed Waypro backflow preventers are an effective immediate, cost-effective measure (~$1.5 million total) to stop sunny-day king tide flooding. Goldman outlined a comprehensive toolbox: (1) repair FDOT outfall backflow preventers, (2) install City redundant backflow preventers at every structure, (3) raise street dips, and (4) prioritize critical pump stations. Board members universally supported the immediate, full-scale installation of redundant backflow preventers. Chair Levy and multiple members voiced deep frustration with FDOT's pace on maintenance and planning, deeming the status quo unacceptable and demanding escalated formal action.
Key Outcomes
- Consent Agenda: Approved unanimously.
- Harrison Street Contract: Staff directed to immediately resolve the engineering seal requirements for the crash-rated bollards to prevent further disruption to businesses and residents.
- Beach Flooding Mitigation (Unanimous Board Direction):
- Proceed immediately with installing City Waypro backflow preventers at every applicable structure on the beach.
- Aggressively escalate formal correspondence with FDOT regarding outfall maintenance, pipe lining/sealing, and securing a long-term funding/reimbursement agreement for the planned pump stations. Chair Levy and Executive Director Keller committed to writing directly to the FDOT Secretary.
- Staff directed to compile an inventory of street dips on Central Beach roads previously improved by the CRA to determine the scope and cost of necessary street raising.
- Explore developing an ordinance requiring private property owners on the west side of A1A to install backflow preventers.
- Staff directed to request the FDOT maintenance contract directly from their procurement department.
- Support for having the General Counsel produce a legal memo on available remedies for a downtown parking garage tenant reportedly not fulfilling its contractual payment obligations.
Meeting Transcript
All right. I know that uh board member Kalery will uh be here. She'll just be here late and we'll acknowledge her attendance as soon as she walks in. Any conflict disclosures today? Hearing none, let's go ahead to 9 a.m. citizen comments. I had a feeling that single card would be Bob Gwickman. Come on up, Bob. Good morning, everyone. Hope everybody is doing great. I see we have new reserve things on these benches here. Since I'm at all the meetings, I'm requesting to get one for myself in the back there, if that's possible. But anyway, I digress. Well, the candy cane parade was great. Some people said it was the best ever. Really appreciate what was done there this year. Uh a couple of items to take care of. There are some potholes on uh the Hollywood beach bridge. Okay, I've been trying to get somebody to fix these for a while. They're on both sides of the uh span of the drawbridge. I'm concerned about the metal getting bad in between, and we have the bridge closed down, so maybe somebody can fix that. Uh I'd like to talk to you about uh recently my my building uh applied for and got a grant for the uh Broadwalk Paint project that they had for the commercial businesses. So we finished a project, we submitted all the paperwork back in the end of September, beginning of October. We still don't have a check for that. Every time we speak to somebody, well, the processing the check. You get it in two weeks, you get it in two weeks. Now we're in the middle of almost December now. Would be nice if we can get that check before year end and close out our books as well. So I just want to bring it to your attention. I don't know where else to go with this. So just to let you know. Uh one thing that we've discussed at the beginning of the year, I hate to bring it up again, but flat gates, check valves, waypro valves, they need maintenance, they need need to be repaired, they need to be replaced. It's not being done. We still have flooding, and the the water is rushing in. We we can talk about sea level rise, we could talk about the water table rising. Nonetheless, these gates need to be fixed. Nothing is being done. Nobody is working on them. I was hoping that uh the Secretary from FDOT would be here today to uh address some of these problems that you've been talking about for months and months and years and years and years, because the underground A1A drainage system needs to be replay repaired and replaced also. That's not being done. So the pipes are cracked, everything is broken, water is just rushing in from all over. So, you know, we have we have problems that and I know it's not you, but you know, we need to bring this to the forefront. Everybody needs to know about it. You know, we need to keep bringing it up, moving forward with it. So, you know, that that's it for that. Hopefully, we don't have to go through this again next year. But lastly, and in closing, I just wanted to wish everybody here on the Dais in the audience at home. Happy holidays to everybody. Appreciate everything you're doing. Keep up the good work.
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