Pompano’s Black Residents Fear the Fate of Beloved E. Pat Larkins Building

By Kristen Hernandez

Pompano Beach, FL – What’s going on with the E. Pat Larkins building?

Will it be torn down? Will it be moved? But most of all, will it continue to be a community cornerstone for the residents of the northwest community.

After years of planning and months of discussion, the northwest community still doesn’t know.

Throughout the month of March, the City of Pompano Beach, the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA), and master developer RocaPoint Partners hosted a series of round table discussions in each of Pompano’s five districts to discuss conceptual plans and project opportunities for the $200 million New Downtown project. The massive 72-acre landscape will feature residential and commercial buildings, small businesses and waterways and border along Atlantic Boulevard and Dr. Martin Luther King Boulevard, between I-95 and Dixie Highway.

The New Downtown promises to bring the city a $2 billion return on investment and has been described as a pedestrian friendly gateway to connect Pompano’s historically black northwest district to east Pompano’s beaches. Roundtables for District 4 were held at E. Pat Larkins Community Center, located at 520 NW 3^rd street.

The main room was set up with roundtable stations where residents could sit with the developer and CRA staff to discuss various aspects of the project. Table topics included: meet the developer, money and financing, new City Hall, economics, opportunity and participation, and downtown ambassadors.

Residents were first shown a 45-minute presentation that gave a glimpse into the massive scale of the project. But when the presentation suggested that E. Pat Larkins Community Center could be rebuilt into a “new and improved” technologically advanced building or even possibly moved elsewhere, tempers flared. Currently, the center doubles as a voting location, serves as a place for community events and celebrations and holds special meaning for the black community.

“We do not want E. Pat Larkins to be destroyed, moved, or town down,” said Beverly Perkins, city commissioner for District 4. “My residents do not want it rebuilt and neither does his widow.”

The beloved center is named after Pompano Beach’s first and only black mayor, the honorable Elijah Pat Larkins, who served seven full terms as mayor, served 19 years as city commissioner, and who dedicated his life to serving the black community.

Larkin’s presence in northwest Pompano goes far beyond city politics. Larkins co-founded Broward County’s Minority Builders Coalition to help support minority-owned construction businesses. Larkins lived through Pompano Beach’s segregation era and fought throughout his life to provide substantial economic opportunities for black residents.

“This building we’re all sitting in was built on eminent domain,” Perkins said. “Someone lost their land for this building to exist. And even after the new downtown is built, the northwest community outside the project zone will continue to live in slum and blight.”

Perkins also stated that after the first New Downtown meeting that served as an introduction between RocaPoint CEO Phil Mays and black residents, they discussed components residents want implemented throughout the project. Perkins wrote a proposal detailing those requests and sent it to city officials, the CRA and the master developer. She did not receive a response. Villij News reported on the proposal details during our coverage last summer, when locals first demanded that the northwest’s’ history be preserved.

Although Mays said that “no decision” regarding the future of E. Pat Larkins Community Center has been made, the meeting included an “options wall” lined with rendered drawings of conceptual plans for a brand-new building. Mays also said, “One building bearing E. Pat Larkins name will always be there.”

Consultants for the CRA, titled “Downtown Ambassadors”, mingled with residents to “talk-up” the projects’ potential. Consultant David Washington, spoke during the slideshow about how northwest residents deserve a “west side that looks like the east side”. But residents said its simply gentrification wrapped in pretty pictures and slideshows.

East Pompano’s pier and beach area recently underwent a massive $2 million overhaul that has attracted big name investors and million-dollar apartments like the W Pompano Beach and Ritz Carlon Residences. Yet over in the northwest district, “west of the tracks” or west of Dixie Highway, the neighborhoods remain in slum and blight, contain hundreds of homeless residents, and is riddled with drug activity and gun violence.

“Imagine the dreams of our ancestors,” Washington said. “Imagine the dreams of Martin Luther King, Jr. You’ll have children in this room 20-30 years from now. There’s nothing wrong with wanting something old and wanting something new. You’re in a position to create a better future. Your own Wakanda.”

Carlene Duncan, known in the neighborhood as Ms. Smoke, responded, “That is straight up nonsense. Y’all gonna make money. We won’t.”

Assistant City Manager Suzette Sibble and CRA director Nguyen Tran assured northwest residents that there will be plenty of economic opportunities, as well as training and business development intended to set residents and small businesses up for success. Tran mentioned that the project is estimated to take over a decade to complete.

“The CRA has partnered with various community partners, including Habitat for Humanity, to build homes in the northwest, plus plans to improve and beautify MLK Blvd, and possibly build a medical center,” Tran said.

A special joint city commission/CRA meeting was held on May 14^th to vote on various project aspects, including the future of the E. Pat Larkins Community Center. However, Perkins requested a postponement until June 4^th at 6pm to have an opportunity to sit with city staff and figure out how some aspects of her proposal could be included and benefit the historically neglected northwest neighborhood.

Considering the location of this massive-scale project, northwest residents want assurances that black culture and history will be prominently featured throughout the project, not just one building. But they also welcome the change a New Downtown could bring, if they are part of that change.