For twenty years, the shortest answer to "where's downtown?" was Las Olas Boulevard between Andrews and SE 6th. The boulevard held the restaurants, the galleries, the sidewalk tables, and by extension the evenings. The river ran behind it, mostly ignored except by the water taxi and the occasional yacht broker. That arrangement quietly ended on January 24, 2026, when the Fort Lauderdale Downtown Development Authority and the Huizenga Park Foundation cut the ribbon on a rebuilt 3.6-acre park at 32 E. Las Olas Blvd.
If you live in one of the towers along Andrews or the New River, you already feel the shift. The boulevard is still the boulevard. But the center of gravity, the place people drift toward on a Saturday morning or a Wednesday after work, has moved half a block south, to the water.
The park is the thesis, not the amenity
Huizenga Park used to be a lawn with a fountain. The renovation, a two-year, $15 million project designed by
