GlobeSt.com: What is your inspiration behind Metropica?

Collazo: Our location, between Sawgrass Mills and the BB&T Center, begged for a complex that included complementary entertainment uses and fine dining to serve residents, and the millions of visitors these two projects attract. But it was also important to establish a sense of place like the great downtowns of the world, given that that this area is drawing buyers not just from the local area, but increasingly from South America, too. Our goal became to create a new urban core for Sunrise, and a prototype for other more suburban areas to develop into a sustainable downtown that does not just reflect Florida, but all great modern cities.

Larsen: It would have been very easy to simply create a traditional South Florida beach vibe for Metropica—it would have been expected and blended well with existing nearby projects. That type of theming is exactly what K Group Holdings and we as the master planner for the commercial sector wanted to avoid.

Instead we were inspired by the downtowns of the great cities of the world, from New York to London to Paris to Barcelona to Madrid to Sao Paolo, to create a genuine urban core for Sunrise, while adding services and amenities that matter to the new highly digitized, environmentally sensitive generation of Millennials who likely will live in the residential towers. What these cities share is density, a daytime and nighttime level of activity and many uses that will reinterpret the idea of a Southern Florida city for the 21st Century.

GlobeSt.com: What is your vision for the project?

Collazo: We're looking to do what several other areas in South Florida, including Delray Beach and Pompano Beach, have done in building thriving downtowns, but in an even more integrated way. For some reason, the west side of the Interstate 95 corridor remains very suburban. Metropica will be its urban core.

That's why we're including high-rise residences, office space and hotels, as well as boutique retail and restaurants, and most importantly, public transportation. People shopping at Sawgrass, attending an event at the BB&T Arena or working at the American Express corporate campus will now have multiple options for dining and entertainment, as we've already signed an iPic cinema as a tenant.

But this is more than just a residential, business and retail complex. This is a pedestrian-oriented community with a sense of place. We'll have courtyards, carefully selected landscaping, bike trails, street front cafes, mass transit and more. It's really Lincoln Road meets the Everglades.

Larson: We want to create a new 24/7 urban core for Sunrise, which is why the project incorporates high-rise residential towers, office space, hotels, retail, dining and restaurants, as well as a transit station that will link Metropica to neighboring developments such as Sawgrass Mills, the BBT Arena, American Express corporate campus and indeed all of Western Broward County. And more than any other project in Florida, this will be a usable, pedestrian community, not reliant on the cars that dominate the rest of the state and help to isolate people and communities from each other.

That's why we've incorporated so many bike lanes, a shuttle bus, and urban streetscapes to accommodate sidewalk cafes and more. But Metropica does embrace traditional Florida, too. The residential towers are oriented toward the Everglades—which are protected so that this view will never change, a frequent hazard in growing cities.