As families from across the nation move to the Sunshine State, Hollywood, Florida's education system faces added pressures that a development company hopes to solve.
To help ease crowding in the public school system and provide parents more choice, real estate development company Fortec is building a Montessori educational facility in the city's downtown area.
This is the company's latest education project, a direct result of the demand for more schools due to the influx of residents into the South Florida area.
Hollywood is a coastal city in Broward County, situated between Fort Lauderdale and Miami.
The company noted almost 10,000 students from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela enrolled in Miami-Dade County public schools for the 2022-23 school year and more are expected in the next school year.
"We believe this project is integral to the city of Hollywood as it will allow for the world's largest Montessori school operator to offer families in the community much-needed, high-quality educational options for their children at all levels, from preschool to high school, right in the center of downtown," Pablo Barreiro, chairman of Fortec, told The Bond Buyer.
Expected to be completed by the end of this month, the 17,000-square-foot development will serve as an expansion to
Fortec owns the property and is Higher Ground's landlord and partner in Florida.
The site, at 2216 Hollywood Blvd., will be an expansion of the school Higher Ground has next door at 2230 Hollywood Blvd.
The current Guidepost Montessori serves 199 students and has a total of 37 employees, including lead guides, assistant guides, head of school, assistant head of school and independent contractors.
The new building will house 162 more students with 24 employees in the expanded wing. The building will be dedicated to classrooms.
Fortec picked the Hollywood site to support community growth and revitalization through education. The site had been an abandoned property.
The company bought the property, received entitlement approval and paid for the construction costs. It took two years to secure the entitlement approval and almost two years to complete the renovation, the firm said.
Fortec said it hopes the facility will serve as a catalyst for the revitalization of the downtown neighborhood.
"The project will also be creating job opportunities for locals, and already we are anticipating at least 24 new positions available," Barreiro said.
Fortec's project was financed by private investors and a financial lender. The company has collaborated on 13 projects nationwide with Higher Ground.
Other locations include Palm Beach, Jacksonville, Naples, Orlando, St. Augustine and Hallandale in Florida; Marietta, Georgia; Burke and Chantilly in Virginia; Boston; and Federal Way, Washington.
In January, Moody's Investors Service assigned an Aa3 rating to the non-ad valorem debt of Hollywood. There was no outlook assigned to the credit; Moody's said it typically doesn't assign outlooks to cities with a smaller amount of debt outstanding. The city has about $166 million of unlimited tax general obligation debt outstanding.
"The Aa3 rating reflects continued growth and expansion of the city's sizable tax base, maintenance of healthy financial reserves and a relatively low debt burden," Moody's said. "These strengths are balanced against the city's very high unfunded pension and OPEB liabilities, and their associated fixed costs."
Fitch Ratings assigns an AA-minus rating to the city's GOs.
"Hollywood is nearly fully developed with a primarily residential tax base. City home values have experienced healthy growth since 2014 with residential home values surpassing the 2008 peak," Fitch said. "Although the city is almost fully built out, tax base growth has been strong and numerous residential and commercial redevelopment projects planned and underway should support continued growth."
