2,000 family members. Now, there are over 6,000 family members, many of whom live nearby.

Zion Otto, an Oakland Park resident who used to live in Fort Lauderdale as a teenager, used her membership to take her two children, 4-year-old Christopher and 2-year-old Selena, to the museum on a recent afternoon. As her kids stared into the museum’s fish tank, Otto reflected on how much the area has changed.

Now 30, Otto said downtown has become a great place for families. Her son attends a downtown pre-school. 

“I also see new developments, like they’re constructing that new, huge, family-friendly park here,” she said, referring to Huizenga Park. In the short time since she moved back to Fort Lauderdale from Texas, she has made a lot of friends who have little ones.

For Rabbi Chaim Slavaticki, the shift in demographics has been a major surprise over the last few years. When Slavaticki and his wife founded the Las Olas Jewish Community Center about 12 years ago, the vast majority of attendees were either young professionals or empty nesters.

In recent years, he said, there has been such a dramatic increase in families, the community center’s Hebrew school attendance has doubled. In order to cater to young families, the center launched new family-friendly holiday programs in the last two years and a new children’s Saturday program this past year.

As a father of six children, ages 3 to 14, Slavaticki is happy to see the change. A few years ago, he said, his was the only family on their street. Now, kids are everywhere, riding bikes and playing together.

“It’s a beautiful thing,” Slavaticki said. “It’s a place that people feel is very welcoming and everybody feels really at home in Fort Lauderdale.”

The baby pipeline

If you really want proof of downtown Fort Lauderdale’s baby boom, visit one of the daycare centers. Waitlists have lengthened to well over a year at some locations.

“Our demand, especially for infant and toddler care has really been so high to the point where we’re just unable to serve it. I think many other providers are in the same boat,” said Angella Schroller, the chief program officer at Jack and Jill, a daycare center with a location near the Museum of Discovery and Science. Her center, which offers daycare through elementary school, has an ever-growing waitlist.

Parents are keen on finding high quality service, Schroller said, but there are simply not enough day cares in the area.

“Downtown is becoming really family-friendly, and we’re here to support that,” she said.

Tara Barlow, the owner of nanny and family-care service provider Jovie, has noticed another interesting trend specific to downtown Fort Lauderdale and Broward County. More companies have been offering employees Jovie’s childcare services for a specific amount of time in order to attract and retain workers. That gives parents the flexibility to, for example, have their child in day care for some weekdays and at home with a Jovie nanny for a couple days a week, Barlow said.

“There has always been a demand, but the demand has changed in the way it looks and feels,” Barlow said.

In downtown Fort Lauderdale, where parents tend to work long hours in demanding fields, Barlow said Jovie’s clients are using its services to maintain what she calls a “work-life-health” balance.

“[Parents] do want us to stay one or two extra hours so that they can go to their fitness class right after work or right before work, because that is also very important,” Barlow said. “They understand that for their mental health and to be fully engaged with their family, they also need to be able to balance that portion of their life, too.”

The statistics from the DDA show that the childcare services emerging in downtown Fort Lauderdale have a good pipeline for future clients— since 2020 there’s been a 40 percent increase in young professionals.

Margo Utter, 28, is among that demographic. After finishing graduate school in 2020, she moved to downtown Fort Lauderdale to work at Stiles, a real estate company. Originally from Naples, Florida, Utter said Fort Lauderdale was at the “top of my list” when she was job searching. Young professionals like herself have flocked to the city to work in several industries, including health, law, real estate and technology, she said.

Though she doesn’t know for sure where life may take her, Utter said she’s built such a strong sense of community in Fort Lauderdale that she could see a future for herself and maybe even a family there.

“I have tons of friends in South Florida. It’s close to home, to family. It was an ideal city for me,” she said.

 

 

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