A crew topped out a 22-story residential tower at 4820 Park Way in February, and seven months later the developer renamed the entire billion-dollar project. Twenty minutes west, past Flamingo Road, a rancher checked a fence line on a one-acre lot where the zoning code still measures dwellings per net acre instead of units per floor. Both events happened in the same town, under the same council, in the same year. Buyers weighing Davie against Southwest Ranches or Parkland tend to hear about the tower and worry it signals the end of horse country. It signals something closer to the opposite.
What Actually Just Happened at the Hard Rock Corner
El-Ad National Properties confirmed in September that its $1 billion mixed-use project on State Road 7, previously called The District at Davie, is now The Plaza Davie District. The rename followed the structural topping-out of the project's first tower, a 288-unit, 22-story building that anchors Phase One. Architecture firm Cooper Carry designed the project, Promethean Builders LLC is the general contractor, and Naples-based CID Design Group handled interiors. At full buildout the plan calls for five residential towers between 21 and 24 stories, roughly 1,292 rental units, 36,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space, and 1.1 million square feet of parking across 2,650 spaces. Phase One is targeted to open in early 2027. Many of the units will look directly at the Guitar at the neighboring Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino.
That is a lot of density for a town whose reputation runs on rodeo arenas and horse-crossing signs. It sits on 2.8 million square feet at one of the most heavily trafficked intersections in central Broward, next to Nova Southeastern University and a short drive from the Seminole Hard Rock's entertainment complex. El-Ad has done this kind of work before, most recently with ALINA Residences in Boca Raton, so the scale is not a first swing at something unfamiliar.
Mayor Judy Paul framed the project in terms that had nothing to do with apartments:
"The Plaza Davie District exemplifies the Town's vision for the Residential, Industrial, Social, and Export (RISE) District, which is designed to encourage mixed use that supports key target industries, including international trade, advanced technology, and manufacturing and distribution."
That is an odd thing to say about a residential tower. It is also the sentence that explains the trade.
The Name Nobody in Horse Country Has Heard
RISE stands for Residential, Industrial, Social, and Export. It is a zoning designation the town created for a specific stretch of the SR-7 corridor, the same corridor where the tower district now sits. The intent, in the mayor's own words, is to concentrate mixed-use development around industries the town wants to grow: trade, technology, manufacturing, distribution. A tower with a Sky Lounge and a coworking space is not, on its face, a manufacturing use. But the RISE District exists because Davie decided a specific eastern corridor should absorb the town's growth pressure, in one place, at one scale, rather than let that pressure diffuse across the town's 35 square miles.
That distinction matters more than the apartment count. A town that spreads density evenly eventually runs out of reasons to keep large-lot zoning intact anywhere. A town that concentrates density in one designated corridor gets to say no everywhere else with a straight face, because it already said yes somewhere.
The Trade Davie Made With Itself
Davie's western half, roughly Flamingo Road to the Everglades, still runs on one-to-five-acre parcels with equestrian zoning, many without an HOA. Neighborhoods like Long Lake Ranches, Flamingo Gardens, and Ivanhoe Estates sit inside that belt, along with gated equestrian communities such as Arrowhead, Stonebrook Estates, and Paddock Club that keep private barns as an amenity rather than an exception. That land pattern is protected by zoning categories that are legally separate from RISE. The Western Theme design overlay and the United Ranches designation govern the west. RISE governs the east. They do not reference each other in the code.
But zoning code and zoning politics are not the same thing. A council under pressure to add housing supply, tax base, and jobs has to find land for that somewhere. Davie found 2.8 million square feet of it at the intersection of SR-7 and a corridor already zoned for exactly this kind of intensity, next to a university and a casino resort that already draw the traffic. Every unit built there is a unit the council does not have to find room for by loosening a one-acre minimum in Long Lake Ranches or rezoning a Flamingo Gardens parcel for a subdivision.
Put the two zoning categories side by side and the geography does the arguing for you:
- East of University Drive, along SR-7: RISE District, 21-to-24-story towers, transit-oriented intensity, target industries in trade and technology, five buildings absorbing nearly 1,300 units.
- West of Flamingo Road, toward the Everglades: Western Theme overlay and United Ranches zoning, one-to-five-acre minimums, no clustering, horse-keeping as a permitted use rather than a variance.
The town council members who spoke at the February topping-out ceremony called the project the largest multifamily development in Davie's history. That superlative is not incidental to the horse country conversation. A council that just built its largest-ever housing project in one concentrated location has less political appetite, not more, to open a second front on the west side.
What This Means If You're Shopping West of Flamingo Road
If you are comparing acreage in Davie against Southwest Ranches, the Plaza Davie District is not a reason to rule Davie out. It is closer to evidence that the town has a working outlet valve for growth pressure, and that outlet is nowhere near the parcels you are actually shopping. Davie already requires new subdivisions to fill in missing links in its equestrian trail network as a condition of site plan approval, a rule that predates RISE and has nothing to do with it. That is a town still legislating in favor of horse infrastructure on the same set of council agendas that approved a 24-story tower across town.
For a buyer evaluating a barn-ready parcel in Long Lake Ranches or a five-acre lot near Flamingo Gardens, the practical takeaway is that the zoning categories protecting that land are structurally distinct from the ones being rewritten on SR-7, and the town's own growth strategy gives it less reason to touch them. That is a different risk profile than a town with no designated growth corridor, where every rezoning request west of the highway becomes its own fight.
What Still Isn't Locked In
None of this makes western Davie's zoning permanent. Phases Two and Three of the Plaza Davie District have not been detailed publicly. Unit mix, pricing tier, and construction timelines for the remaining four towers are still unannounced as of this September. If the RISE corridor fills faster than expected, or if the project underdelivers on the tax base and job growth the council is counting on, the calculus that currently favors leaving the west alone could shift. Buyers with a long time horizon on acreage, particularly anyone weighing a multi-year hold before building out a barn or arena, should track the RISE District's build-out pace the same way they would track any other supply signal, because it is the clearest early indicator of whether the town's growth appetite stays satisfied east of University Drive.
A Few Direct Questions
Does the Plaza Davie District change zoning west of Flamingo Road? No. The RISE District and the Western Theme overlay covering western Davie are separate zoning categories. The tower project does not rezone, and has no legal mechanism to rezone, acreage west of Flamingo Road.
Is Davie's horse country shrinking? The zoning minimums governing one-to-five-acre equestrian parcels in western Davie have not changed. The town's equestrian trail requirement for new subdivisions also remains in effect, independent of the RISE District's build-out.
Should this affect how I price or time a purchase west of Flamingo Road? It is a factor worth tracking rather than acting on today. The current concentration of growth in the RISE District supports zoning stability elsewhere in town, but Phases Two and Three of the tower project are not yet finalized, and that timeline is worth watching if you are planning a long hold.
If you are trying to read what a specific parcel west of Flamingo Road is actually worth, given usable acreage, equestrian infrastructure, and where it sits relative to the zoning lines that matter, that is exactly the kind of valuation work Tommy Crivello Group does for buyers and sellers across Davie's horse country. Request a Private Valuation and get a read on your property that accounts for the land itself, not just the square footage.
