A developer won approval in Davie to build a 164-bed assisted living facility, despite opposition from the town’s mayor.
All the beds would be occupied by elderly people incapable of independent living who need assisted living services or memory care.
“The market is immense,” Manuel Synalovski, the development’s architect, told the Davie Town Council at its meeting last week.
He said studies show that Broward County has about 9,600 beds in assisted living facilities. Yet, it has 360,000 residents, or 18 percent of the county’s population, who need assisted living services.
The assisted living facility planned in Davie would have 164 private rooms in an L-shaped, three-story building that wraps around a central courtyard with an aqua therapy pool.
The developer of the 115,238-square-foot facility is Eco Contracting LLC, led by Gennady Kiselman. He is also one of three managers of 5000 Davie LLC, which acquired the 3.8-acre development site at 4980-5000 South Davie Road for $1.8 million in 2020, according to state and county records.
The owners of the development site acquired it largely because it is 2.5 miles south of HCA Florida University Hospital, next to the Davie campus of Nova Southeastern University, and the same distance north of Memorial Hospital Pembroke in Pembroke Pines, Synalovski said at the town council meeting.
The Davie Town Council last Wednesday voted 4-1 to approve a site plan for the assisted living facility and rezone the development site.
The council also voted 4-1 to approve seven other proposals by the developer, including four variances from zoning rules and an allocation of 82 “flex units” to the site, allowing a denser cluster of dwelling units there. A 164-bed assisted living facility is considered the equivalent of 82 dwelling units under the town’s comprehensive plan.
Davie Mayor Judy Paul voted against all nine proposals by the developer, citing her opposition to the development’s size.
“When you first came in with this, I had asked you to do something smaller,” she told Kiselman and Synalovski at the town council meeting. “You wouldn’t have needed so many variances. You should have done something smaller. Instead, you came in asking for flex units to make it bigger.”
Paul also questioned why the development site has been listed for sale. “That was very concerning to me,” she said. “We’ve seen this happen before, where we approved something, and they put it up for sale and it never gets built.”
Kiselman said lenders that have considered financing his Davie development told him that listing the site for sale would help them assess its value.
“It’s been on the market for four years just to establish the value,” Kiselman said, adding that he intends to build the assisted living facility, then sell it to a major operator of such facilities.
