NRIA’s successor proposes 48-story apartment tower in Fort Lauderdale

The successor to the formerly embattled National Realty Investment Advisors proposed a 48-story, 429-unit apartment tower in Fort Lauderdale’s Flagler Village area.

A city review panel told a subsidiary of AIRN Holding Company on Tuesday to consider redesigning the ­proposed multifamily tower to address excessive podium height and add visual drama to the roofline.

Robert Lochrie, an attorney representing the subsidiary, 3rd Street Capital 203-215 Propco LLC, said its parent, Delaware-based AIRN Holding Company, became the successor to NRIA after NRIA emerged from bankruptcy proceedings in August of last year.

In June 2022, NRIA filed for Chapter 11 protection from creditors. In October of that year, federal prosecutors charged the former Secaucus, New Jersey-based firm’s top executives, Thomas Nicholas Salzano and Rey E. Grabato II, for their roles in an alleged scheme to defraud more than 2,000 investors of $650 million. In February, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey announced that Salzano pleaded guilty to orchestrating the scheme.

On Tuesday, Fort Lauderdale’s Development Review Committee urged 3rd Street Capital to consider an angled roofline, instead of a flat one, and to comply with the city’s nine-floor limit on podium height or ask the city commission for an exception to the rule at the tower development site, just west of the intersection of Northeast Third Avenue and Northeast Third Street.

Among other comments, the committee also told 3rd Street Capital to provide a sidewalk at least seven feet wide along Northeast Third Street, to consider putting landscaped green space on the tower’s rooftop, and to contact condominium and homeowner associations within 300 feet of the development site to present the project to neighbors.

Those comments were part of the DRC’s 27-page written response to the Flagler Village development proposed by 3rd Street Capital. The company’s representatives did not ask any questions about the DRC’s response to the proposed project during a brief meeting with committee members on Tuesday.

3rd Street Capital paid $9.3 million last year to acquire the 0.7-acre site of the 48-story development at 203 Northeast Third Street in Flagler Village. In 2021, NRIA also bought another 0.7-acre site directly across the street, at 200 Northeast 3rd Street, for $9.8 million. The company once considered developing a pair of 43-story, 388-unit residential buildings, one on each site. Since August 2023, the site at 200 Northeast Third Street has been owned by Third Street Capital 20-210 Propco LLC, according to county property records.

The DRC’s architectural commentary on the planned 48-story tower included requests to include “more high-quality materials” and to “add articulation to the tower facades to reduce massing.”

Before the committee signs off on the proposed tower, a list of conditions must be met. Among others, the committee wants 3rd Street Capital to calculate the planned tower’s water consumption and wastewater production, and to obtain a letter of service availability from the city’s public works department.