What's Actually Changing in Margate This Year
July 23, 2026
July 23, 2026
A Yelp reviewer once summed up the local reputation with rough affection, calling Margate a "nondescript little municipality stuck between Coral Springs and Coconut Creek." That line has held for a long time. In 2026, for the first time in three decades of talk, it stops being accurate.
On March 11, the Margate Community Redevelopment Agency signed a development agreement with Brookfield DA Holdings for the 50-plus acres at Margate Boulevard and State Road 7. Four months later, on July 9, Brookfield walked in with an initial concept design. If you own a home here, that is the story of the year, and the rest of the calendar sits underneath it.
The redevelopment site is bigger than most residents realize. The agreement covers roughly 50 acres controlled by the CRA plus about 8.8 acres owned by the city, land assembled over years from the former Swap Shop property, the Ace Hardware Plaza, and the Chevy Chase shopping plaza.
The plan is phased, and the phases have real numbers attached now:
| Phase | Residential units | Commercial space |
|---|---|---|
| Phase I | 390 | ~39,300 sq ft |
| Phase II | 264 | ~13,500 sq ft |
| Phase III | 296 | ~18,000 sq ft |
The city has committed $35 million in CRA funding to reimburse Brookfield for public improvements, released only as specific milestones are hit. The initial term of the agreement runs 15 years, with three possible five-year extensions if phases keep progressing. City Manager Cale Curtis, who also serves as the CRA's Executive Director, has been describing the project as an "eatertainment" hub, dining plus entertainment experiences meant to keep people on-site into the evening.
For anyone who has driven past that corner for the last twenty years and watched nothing happen, the difference between "concept" and "signed agreement with a $35 million public-side commitment" is the difference that matters.
The March meeting was contentious. The original plan carried a housing cap of 950 units. The board cut it to 600 after Vice Chair Tommy Ruzzano opened by moving to dismiss the agreement outright, and every public speaker that night opposed housing at the site. Board Chair Anthony Caggiano argued the opposite, that without development the area would decline. Board member Arlene Schwartz voiced the concern that has hung over Margate for years, that the city is treated as a pass-through on the way to the Promenade in Coconut Creek.
The compromise number tells you what to expect. 600 units across three phases is enough density to support 70,800 square feet of restaurants and retail without emptying out at 9 p.m., but small enough that City Center will feel more like a walkable town square than a Brickell-style tower cluster. Brookfield's Phase One presentation on July 9 leaned into that reading, with native trees, interactive water features, a recreation lawn sized for outdoor movies, a pet park, and an indoor recreation facility surrounding the retail and residential frontage.
If you live off Rock Island Road or in one of the older neighborhoods on the east side, the practical read is this: your closest sit-down dining options in a year or two are going to be inside your own city, not a fifteen-minute drive south.
City Center is the future. The current food scene is quietly more interesting than outsiders assume, and it is worth knowing what is already here before the new tenants arrive and get all the attention.
A few places locals keep returning to:
None of these places need a City Center to justify their existence. They are what the redevelopment is being built to complement, not replace.
Margate's event calendar is bigger than the city gets credit for, and the commission renewed sponsorships for the three anchor festivals back in March. If you are new to town, or you have been here for years and always meant to go, this is the shortlist:
For the weekly rhythm, the Margate Community Farmers Market runs Thursday mornings, 8:30 to 11:30, during the summer 2026 season from June 18 through September 3. Small, walkable, easy to fold into a morning.
The MCRA is scheduled to sunset in 2026, and it is spending its final years working through more than $20 million in capital improvements. That number matters because the work is happening now, not in a future phase you might never see.
The current punch list includes undergrounding utilities along key corridors, upgrading parks, installing new lighting and landscaping along major roads, and revitalizing older commercial properties. A specific park project bundling upgraded court and playground lighting, resurfacing, new fencing, security cameras, re-sodding, and a wayfinding-style identification sign at the entrance is targeted for completion in FY26. Median improvements along the MCRA corridors are also in flight, with new canopy and flowering trees replacing sod, and a deliberate reduction in the quantity of sabal palms in favor of more varied planting.
The MCRA also runs two grant programs residents rarely hear about but commercial property owners should. The Commercial Property Improvement Grant Program reimburses façade improvements and landscaping upgrades on eligible properties in the target areas, and a separate Property Improvement Program Grant covers more comprehensive fixed capital improvements. If you own a small commercial building inside the CRA district, this is money available on a reimbursement basis for pre-approved work, and the window is closing with the agency.
The taxable value of properties inside the MCRA has more than tripled over the life of the agency to about $1.47 billion. That is the baseline the next phase inherits.
Most years in Margate look like the last one. 2026 does not. The redevelopment agreement is signed, the concept design is public, the park and streetscape work is funded and moving, the festivals are locked in, and the restaurants that will carry the food scene into the City Center era are already open and worth your weeknight.
If you have lived here long enough to hear five or six versions of "the City Center is finally happening," the honest read is that this one has legal teeth the earlier ones did not. Watch the CRA agendas on the second Wednesday of each month. Show up to a Brookfield presentation if you can. And in the meantime, eat at the places that have been here doing the work all along.
If you have been thinking about what your Margate home is actually worth as the neighborhood changes, or you are curious what a City Center-anchored future does to values on your block, a conversation with Jason Jardine and the team at ClearStōn Realty is a straightforward place to start. Get a Free Home Valuation and we will walk you through what we are seeing, without the sales pitch.
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