Overview of International Swimming Hall of Fame Peninsula
An iconic upgrade is coming to two International Swimming Hall of Fame buildings that bookend the Fort Lauderdale Aquatic Center.
- The $90 million project will bring two iconic buildings — a five-story museum on the west end along the intercoastal and a five-story office, retail, and welcome center facing the Atlantic Ocean on the east end. The current outdated buildings sit the 5-acre International Swimming Hall of Fame peninsula in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
- The project received an approval from the Fort Lauderdale commission on October 21st to move forward with an interim agreement with the Hall of Fame Partners. Commissioner Steve Glassman said the project will dovetail with the city’s $47 million renovation of the Fort Lauderdale Aquatic Center, which broke ground in April 2019 and is expected to be completed with new locker rooms in September of 2022.
- The new buildings would open by 2025. The financial model is based on a private and public partnership (P3) and relies on income primarily from rental space for tenants. Under the proposal, private money will pay for construction with the city guaranteeing the loan for both buildings and contributing $5 million over the course of a 30-year master lease.
- The City recognized that if the existing buildings remain, they will need $18 million in work to stay open beyond the next decade. Under ISHOF’s current lease, the city would be required to make those upgrades. The cost to taxpayers would increase to $33 million if the city were to borrow the money through a 20-year bond to make upgrades vs replacing the buildings under the current plan.
- The two new buildings would stand almost equal to the aquatic center’s new dive tower, the western hemisphere’s tallest at 27 meters.
- The design for the west building will house a new 20,000-square-foot museum, VIP Skyboxes overlooking the aquatic center, a two level 2,000-square-foot library, a 3,250-square-foot mezzanine for ISHOF offices, a 2,000-square-foot ISHOF multi-purpose meeting room, a large ballroom, and a rooftop restaurant with outdoor dining, as well as a covered teaching pool. Visitors will have breathtaking views of the Intracoastal to the west and the aquatic center and the ocean to the east. The plan will also create enough parking for 202 cars and a public promenade at the western end of the peninsula lining the edge of the Intracoastal.
- The east building will be the main entrance to the aquatic center and will feature an ISHOF Welcome Center, street-side café, new offices for Ocean Rescue and commercial space. Two outside viewing terraces will let visitors enjoy coffee while watching competitions or just taking in the views of both the beach to the east and the aquatic center to the west.
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