A Drab Downtown's Comeback

Public investment, new land-use regulations, and developers who see a neighborhood on the rise are fueling a comeback of Oakland Park's formerly dreary downtown district. Street improvements, utility upgrades, land acquisition, and redevelopment incentives in a nearly 150-acre area north of Oakland Park Boulevard along Dixie Highway are helping to replace industrial gloom with a thriving Main Street atmosphere: apartments above shops, tree-shaded sidewalks, outdoor seating, street-side bustle. The city's investment has been boosted by an $18.5 million loan from the Florida League of Cities. ''We have taken a city in a bad financial situation and turned it into one of the hot spots in Broward County right now,'' Mayor Layne Walls said.