It won't stay this way long, which explains all the celebrating. The sound of bulldozers is the sound of money.

Don't think for a minute that this road was built in 15 months because thousands of commuters were begging for it (try to get a pothole plugged that fast). And don't think it was built to ease the deadly chaos of I-95, because it runs nowhere near the interstate.

The Sawgrass was built for one reason only: to open the last frontiers of Broward County for rapid development. The value of sodden rural property tends to appreciate when somebody graciously runs an expressway to it. It's like Christmas in July.

It's just progress, right? If you like truck routes, it's progress.

Twenty-five years ago Dade County planners exulted in the opening of what was then called the Palmetto Bypass. The highway's purported mission was to carry motorists on a western loop around Miami's congested central core. Within months of its inaugural, the sparse Palmetto had attracted a bottling plant, three industrial parks, a machine shop, a metal shop, and a tractor plant. The rest is traffic history.

Today, if you were choosing the most unsightly, treacherous and truck-heavy highway in America, the Palmetto would be in the running for grand prize. It's a mess.

Well, guess what's already happening along the perimeters of the Sawgrass Expressway? Coral Ridge Properties just gobbled up 610 acres. Gulfstream Land is planning 29,000 residential units. Stiles Development Corp. is promising 6 million square feet of office and industrial space—as much as all downtown Fort Lauderdale.

The hype is that the Sawgrass was built to alleviate future traffic. The opposite is true. The plan is for more, not less. The plan is a new western front ripe for mailing and townhousing.

The plan is to scour every last available acre.

Funny how nobody wants to come right out and say it. Instead they send a frog to do a buzzard's job.

Buying a piece of Florida? See it like a native

February 16, 1987

Forgive a little boosterism, but I'm getting sick and tired of people casting aspersions on the land-sales business here in the Sunshine State. Geez, some customers want everything their way.

Last Friday's front-page story about the mammoth General Development Corporation was the last straw. To summarize, over the past three years GDC has received more than 400 complaints from dissatisfied land and home buyers, many of whom say they didn't get what they paid for.

Well, PARDON US FOR LIVING, OK? I mean, this is Florida. There's a certain, uh, image to uphold.

As you know, GDC is one of these megacompanies that gobbles up tracts of real estate and turns them into "planned communities" that are all named Port Something-or-other, but aren't really ports at all.

Flying over a planned community, you marvel at how the miracle of geometry allows so many houses to be squished onto so many side-by-side lots. This stylish platting technique is modeled after the marine barracks at Camp Lejeune.

Such developments have attracted thousands of new residents to Florida, most of whom would never dream of griping. They're just mighty glad to be here.

As a convenience for out-of-state customers, GDC's mannerly and low-key sales force is scattered throughout the country. What happens is that you go into the land-sales office and a very nice man or woman helps you pick out a lot—thus saving you the hassle of flying all the way down here, renting a car, buying a map and trying to locate the darn thing yourself—and the bugs! Forget it.

You'd think buyers would be grateful for this service, right? Wrong. Some crybabies have had the gall to complain that the land they ended up with wasn't the land they meant to buy. Some lots turned out to be worth only a fraction of the purchase price, and one customer said a canal near his lot turned out to be a "swamp."

Talk about picky. Hey, pal, ever heard of a canoe?

Customers who buy GDC land site-unseen are offered a company-paid trip to visit their new property. By taking the trip, however, they waive their option to cancel the sales contract. Some might say this policy is unfair and defeats the whole purpose of the trip, but look at the other side. Think of how many freezing snowbirds would try to weasel a free vacation to Florida this way!

Then there's the recurring problem with property appraisals. It seems that when residents try to sell their GDC lots or homes, the appraisals sometimes come up just a tad short of what was originally paid. One couple purchased a house for $65,000 in 1984; just a year later, an independent appraiser valued the place at $40,500. Another woman bought a house at Port Malabar for $67,000, and eight months later it was appraised at $43,000.

I'm sure there are excellent reasons for these minor discrepancies. So much can happen to a new house in eight months or a year—the paint can fade, the dog can mess up the carpets, the sprinklers can turn the sidewalks orange. Fifty bucks here and there, and before you know it, you've got $24,000 worth of serious depreciation.

More to the point, why would anyone want to sell their lovely GDC home anyway? The whole idea is to move to Florida and spend eternity in paradise, assuming the roads eventually get paved.

Instead of whining about it, I say we applaud GDC for goosing up its prices and discouraging resales. Florida needs citizens who stay put, not buy-and-sell vagabonds who disturb the stability of a carefully planned community.

Even more important—and forgive us for getting a little misty-eyed—is preserving Florida's glorious tradition of hawking itself as shamelessly and profitably as is humanly possible. If someone sells you swampland, it's because someone sold swampland to their fathers, and perhaps even to their grandfathers before that.

Maybe it's in our blood, or maybe it's just something in the water, but it is part of our heritage. Thank heavens it's still alive.

Maybe first Thanksgiving soured early

November 24, 1989

A University of Florida historian reports that, contrary to American folklore, the first Thanksgiving did not take place in 1621 after the Pilgrims' arrival at Plymouth Rock.

Rather, the original feast supposedly was held 56 years earlier at St. Augustine when Spanish explorer Pedro Menendez de Aviles invited the Timucua Indians to dinner. The prayerful gathering was called to celebrate the Spaniards' safe landing on the Florida coast.

If true, this revisionist account of the holiday raises important historical questions. Why did tradition embrace the New England Thanksgiving instead of the original Florida Thanksgiving? What really happened on that autumn evening in 1565 when the Spaniards and the Timucua broke bread? Did something go terribly wrong to spoil the occasion? Perhaps it all went sour on the day after the big cookout, when ...

"Chief, you look awful—what's the matter?"

"It's those damn garbanzo beans. I should never have let Pedro talk me into a second helping."

"Speaking of Pedro, he and his men were up at the crack of dawn this morning. They chopped down many of our finest trees, and now they seem to be building something on our beach."

"I wondered who was causing all that racket. What are they making, another one of those ugly forts?"

"Not exactly, Chief. Pedro calls it a high-rise."

"I don't understand—what is that word, 'high-rise'? How would we say it in Timucuan?"

"Literally, it means Tall Box Full of Noisy Strangers."

"But why would Pedro put such an unnatural thing on such a beautiful shore!"

"He says he had a spiritual vision, Chief. He says that thousands upon thousands more settlers will soon be coming to Florida, and they will all need a place to sleep and eat and give thanks."