A pair of Fort Lauderdale churches with histories stretching back nearly 100 years are being transformed into new places to congregate over bread and wine, finding second lives as restaurant-bars in two downtown neighborhoods bustling with youthful activity.
Located in the heart of Flagler Village, at 441 NE Third Ave., First Evangelical Lutheran Church is in the middle of a multi-million dollar renovation of its interior that will yield a 220-seat restaurant, with an outdoor bar bracketed by a 3,000-square-foot landscaped terrace.
The most controversial part of the remodel is work that will turn the main sanctuary of the church into a 5,000-square-foot nightclub. The project, called The Abbey, is by local hospitality veteran David Cardaci, best known for the popular Rhythm & Vine — laidback beer garden by day, pumping music venue by night — as well as the Wilder cocktail lounge and the Whole Enchilada fast-casual chain.
Just a mile up the street, the Fourth Avenue International Worship Center was recently purchased by Eduardo Pelaez, who has developed properties in Miami’s Wynwood and Little River neighborhoods. A resident of Fort Lauderdale, Pelaez’s vision for his church includes a food-hall scenario featuring a main restaurant, with several boutique cafes and retail spaces, perhaps a brewery or distillery, all enclosed by a densely tropical garden.
The church, originally known as the Fourth Avenue Church of God, at 1237 NE Fourth Ave., sits on the southwest corner of the intersection with Northeast 13th Street, an up-and-coming retail thoroughfare that includes the buzzy Milk Money restaurant and Gulf Stream Brewing on its eastern end.
Pelaez is 12 to 18 months away from opening his doors and believes COVID-19 social-distancing rules for restaurants and bars will be less restrictive by then. For better or worse, Cardaci expects to be ready to open by the end of the year — though it doesn’t mean he will open.
“It’s scary,” Cardaci says, acknowledging that his firm, Knallhart Management Group, had five projects in various stages of development when the pandemic hit. “It’s 2 o’clock in the morning, we’re in Vegas and I’m pushing all my chips into the center of the table right now, hoping to God that things work out for us.”
Old stones
A glorious Romanesque assemblage of bulky gray stones, in a previous life the First Evangelical Lutheran Church was the original St. Anthony’s Catholic Church, Broward County’s first Catholic church, built in 1922 on the northeast corner of Third Avenue and Las Olas Boulevard.
When the parish decided to build a larger church in its current location (on Northeast Ninth Avenue, near Broward Boulevard), the original stone structure was sold to the Lutherans for $1. It was dismantled and moved, stone by stone, to be reassembled on land eight blocks north, where it was dedicated in 1949.
In 2016, the dwindling downtown Lutheran congregation sold the property to developer Taho Investments, which prompted local preservationists to spring into action. In 2017, Fort Lauderdale city commissioners voted to protect part of the church, its stone facade, with a historic designation.
The decision frustrated any plans that Taho Investments might have had to demolish the church, but did not rule out changes to the interior. Cardaci acknowledges he feels “some responsibility” as the new custodian of the long-dormant church.
“We’re going to do a great job of transforming it into something the community can still enjoy,” he says.
The nightlife venue takes up the church’s main worship area, with its magnificent curved ceiling lined in wooden beams, which will be illuminated by a $250,000 lighting system. A stage for DJs and, every so often, a live band, is where the altar once sat.
Sitting over a large bar near the front door on the east side of the building, a new second-floor mezzanine area will add 2,000 square feet of party space to the 5,000 square foot room. Tucked just inside the front door will be a boutique cocktail bar.
Behind the stage, a massive opening in the wall awaits the return of the church’s largest stained-glass window. Cardaci says Taho Investments’ founder Itay Avital had all of the windows refurbished and that reinstallation will be one of the final pieces of the project.
The windows will sit behind two panes of hurricane-impact glass, the soundproof panels separated by a layer of gas to keep music inside the building. The sound components by Void Acoustics, which has designed systems for clubs in Ibiza, London and San Francisco, will run $500,000, according to Cardaci.
A wall will be constructed to separate the club from the restaurant and bar on the ground floor of the attached two-story building on the south side of the church. Cardaci’s corporate offices will be on the second floor.
The restaurant menu is still being developed, but will be an accessibly priced, not-just-weekends kind of place, Cardaci says. The large patio will feature a retractable awning, wood decking and banquettes, trees and tropical plants.
Cardaci had been calling the project The Sanctuary, but decided that wasn’t welcoming enough.
“It was too dark. Kind of dark and goth, dirty and clubby. We wanted to go with something brighter and cheerful, so we went with The Abbey,” he says.
Creating a new dining and entertainment venue in a historic church surrounded by a neighborhood booming with traditional high-rise development is a unique opportunity, Cardaci admits.
Taho Investments has plans for a residential tower on the south side of the church property.
“If they get rid of all these things, then it’s not interesting anymore. Even if you do hospitality in the bottom floor of a brand-new building, it’s not interesting. There’s nothing fun. It’s like Orlando,” Cardaci says.
Cardaci grew up near Orlando, in Winter Garden, before striking out on an eclectic entrepreneurial career that included executive positions in Silicon Valley and Nikki Beach Group, the global nightclub and lifestyle brand. Cardaci is building a boutique hotel, his first, in Winter Garden.
“This is interesting,” he says of the church. “The architecture’s interesting. The defects of the building are interesting. The cracks, the doors not closing perfectly, give it character. I think you need that.”
Garden of eatin’
The Fourth Avenue International Worship Center is a mile north of Cardaci’s project on the same street — Third Avenue becomes Fourth Avenue near Sunrise Boulevard. The church also is a mile south of where Fourth Avenue becomes Wilton Drive.
This link between Flagler Village and Wilton Manors, two of the city’s most popular entertainment districts, gives the street the potential to become a unique commercial and residential thoroughfare, says Jaime Sturgis, founder of Native Realty, a Fort Lauderdale real-estate firm that specializes in emerging urban neighborhoods.
“As you flow from one neighborhood to the next, they all have their own unique vibe and vision, but the idea is if we can create some continuity between all these things, you can have this cool experience, whether it be on foot or car, bike or skateboard,” Sturgis says.
Being at the center of that activity was part of the attraction for Pelaez when his family-owned Wellmeaning Investments acquired the 1.2-acre church site for $2.4 million.
“I was an early investor in Wynwood, and I see it kind of playing out the same way. The city’s going to grow on that path, no?” Pelaez says.
While the Fourth Avenue International Worship Center may lack outward physical beauty, its history as a spiritual heart of a diverse community of whites, Jamaicans, Trinidadians, Brazilians and Haitians stretches back decades under longtime pastor Rev. Diane Mann, who succeeded her father, Rev. F.G. Mann.
In 2016, the Fort Lauderdale City Commission honored the church’s 90th anniversary and its “lasting impact on our community.”
The Venezuelan-born Pelaez, who recently moved from Miami to east Fort Lauderdale, describes himself as a serious “foodie” interested in creating a stage for fresh culinary ideas. One idea he’s considering is an intimate omakase space that would host residencies for up-and-coming sushi chefs.
A single-story classroom building that extends south from the church, and a warehouse on the south property line, will be converted into small individual spaces, which will open onto a lush garden setting that shields them from Fourth Avenue traffic.
Pelaez says his focus will be on designing beautiful outdoor spaces — for dining, drinking coffee or cocktails, yoga sessions and more.
He is about to start work on a similar project in a 7,000-square-foot strip center just south Miami’s massive Citadel food hall in the Little River neighborhood. His plans are to divide that property into 1,000-square-foot spaces that he will reorient away from busy Northeast Second Avenue to face the rear of the property, where he’ll create a garden.
The grouping of small restaurants and markets in Little River will be called El Jardin (The Garden).
Pelaez finds something spiritual in nature. He doesn’t do nightclubs.
“I believe in nature, and that God is within nature, more than anything else,” he says. “By creating a luscious garden, I am bringing in more natural elements to a concrete city, no? I plan to bring life to that corner, which did not have much life. I believe the work we’ll be doing will be uplifting.”
Staff writer Ben Crandell can be reached at bcrandell@sunsentinel.com.
