Central Beach Guide GLEN PRIMAK GROUP SERHANT.

History

Central Beach History: From Spring Break to the Wave Wall and the High-Rises

By Glen Primak, GLEN PRIMAK GROUP · Updated

A beach strip on a barrier island

Central Beach sits on the narrow barrier island between the Atlantic Ocean and the Intracoastal Waterway. Its streets run in a tight grid from Sunrise Boulevard south to Las Olas Boulevard, then narrow to the strip of A1A and Seabreeze Boulevard that leads to Bahia Mar. The oldest condominium, co-op and townhouse buildings in the building directory date from the late 1940s (BCPA year built 1947), from the postwar decades when small motels and garden apartments filled the blocks behind the beach.

The spring-break years

For decades, this stretch of A1A was the center of college spring break. The 1960 film Where the Boys Are, set in Fort Lauderdale, drew national attention to it. In the 1980s the City decided the annual crowds were hurting the beach’s economic future and set out to change course.

The revitalization plans, 1986–1989

The City adopted a run of plans in quick succession: the Central Beach zoning ordinance and design guidelines (1986), the Revitalization Plan (1988) and the Community Redevelopment Plan (1989). A December 1989 update, prepared for the City’s Beach Redevelopment Office under a Coastal Zone Management grant, tested those plans against road, parking and hurricane-evacuation capacity. The 1989 plan set up what is now the Beach Community Redevelopment Area; the CRA’s 2017 amendments folded most of its planned public improvements into four projects: the Las Olas Boulevard corridor, the Fort Lauderdale Aquatic Center, the A1A streetscape and the Las Olas Marina expansion.

The zoning districts you see on City maps today (A-1-A Beachfront Area, Planned Resort Development, North Beach Residential Area, Sunrise Lane Area, Intracoastal Overlook Area and South Beach Marina and Hotel Area) are the Central Beach districts of ULDR Sec. 47-12.

The wave wall

The landmark of the neighborhood is the wave wall, the low, white, serpentine wall that runs along the beach side of A1A with a wide promenade behind it. Landscape architects EDSA designed it with the A1A redesign that ended diagonal beachfront parking and added planted medians and bike lanes. The lead designer’s project page says the work was completed in 1988; EDSA describes it as “revitalized in the 1990s.”

The design had to respect the beach. Street lights on the ocean side were shielded so they would not disorient nesting sea turtles or hatchlings, and the wall was built to break into small pieces in a hurricane rather than becoming a battering ram.

After Sandy

In late 2012, waves from Hurricane Sandy and a later storm undermined A1A and the wave wall just north of Sunrise Boulevard. The rebuild added a buried steel sheet-pile foundation behind a replica of the wall and narrowed that stretch of A1A to two lanes with bike lanes. That segment is outside this guide’s boundary, but it is the clearest local example of how storms reach the beachfront road.

The high-rise era

Since the revitalization, hotels, hotel-condominiums and condominium towers have replaced many of the low motels, especially along A1A and Birch Road. The building directory lists the condominium, co-op and townhouse buildings on the county roll today, with the year each was built.

Sources

  1. Central Beach Revitalization Plan Update (F.D.E.R. Grant Report F-8912, December 1989), Edward D. Stone, Jr. & Associates for the City of Fort Lauderdale Beach Redevelopment Office — U.S. Government Publishing Office (Coastal Zone Information Center) (accessed Oct 24, 2026)
  2. Design Guidelines for Private Property Improvements, Fort Lauderdale Central Beach (1986) — U.S. Government Publishing Office (Coastal Zone Information Center) (accessed Oct 24, 2026)
  3. Fort Lauderdale Beach Revitalization (project page) — EDSA (accessed Oct 24, 2026)
  4. Beach Revitalization, Environmental Master Plan and Streetscape (designer's project page) — Archinect (JR Phillips) (accessed Oct 24, 2026)
  5. Fort Lauderdale CRA Annual Report 2017 (Beach CRA plan amendments, May 16, 2017) — Fort Lauderdale Community Redevelopment Agency (accessed Oct 24, 2026)
  6. Integration of Resilience and Context Sensitivity in a Coastal Environment: State Road A1A in Fort Lauderdale (case study) — AASHTO Center for Environmental Excellence (accessed Oct 24, 2026)
  7. ULDR Sec. 47-12, Central Beach Districts — City of Fort Lauderdale (Municode) (accessed Oct 24, 2026)
  8. Broward County Property Appraiser: parcel records (year built, pulled Oct 24, 2026) — BCPA (accessed Oct 24, 2026)