For years, anyone driving along NE 27th Street in Lighthouse Point passed the same scene: a fenced-off, aging clubhouse that never seemed to get any closer to becoming whatever it was supposed to become. Resident Justin Schwantes finally said what a lot of neighbors were thinking when he stood up at a city commission meeting and asked the question directly: what's going on with the Lighthouse Point Yacht Club?
He got a partial answer that day. The full answer took longer. This month, the clubhouse that developer Terry Paterson bought back in 2017 finally came down, according to reporting from the New Pelican. The obvious assumption is that a project like this drags on because of money, or because the design kept changing, or because nobody could agree on what the new building should look like. That's not quite what happened here. The building came down nine years after Paterson bought the property, and the delay traces back to a sequence of very specific, very separate problems: a toxic material nobody expected to find, a fire code dispute with an inspector from a different city, and a standoff over which came first, the demolition or the money to pay for what replaces it.
Nine Years on One Corner of NE 27th Street
Paterson purchased the Lighthouse Point Yacht Club property in July 2017 for $16 million, according to New Pelican's reporting on the redevelopment. The original plan called for a 43,000-square-foot clubhouse alongside 22 luxury townhomes, with a total project cost estimated at $32 million. Early planning documents even penciled in a groundbreaking date of early 2021.
None of that happened on schedule. The clubhouse, built in 1961 and once considered the centerpiece of the city, kept operating through most of this stretch, hosting members, tennis players, and boaters at its marina while the redevelopment sat in various stages of permitting. The building that was supposed to be a two-year project became something closer to a decade-long one, and the reasons why are more specific than "development takes time."
Asbestos Closed the Clubhouse in August 2022
The first real derailment was structural, not political. Asbestos turned up in the 60-year-old clubhouse, and its removal required a county permit before any other work could proceed. The clubhouse closed to members in August 2022, according to New Pelican's coverage of the delays. Paterson set up an outdoor area to serve food and drinks, with food trucks parked on site, while the building itself sat empty and its air conditioning began to fail.
Paterson asked the city for permission to tear the building down immediately, arguing it had become unsafe. The city's building official had already shut down his abatement work once because it started without a permit, and getting the demolition authorized took months longer than the removal of the asbestos itself.
The Fire Marshal Who Doesn't Answer to Lighthouse Point
The second delay is the one most residents probably never heard the full story on, and it's the one that actually explains most of the lost time. Lighthouse Point doesn't have its own fire marshal. Plan reviews for a project this size go to Pompano Beach's fire plans examiner instead, and in this case that examiner, Jim Galloway, disagreed with an earlier determination from Lighthouse Point's own Planning and Zoning Board.
The board had approved the clubhouse design for a maximum indoor capacity of roughly 400 people. Galloway's office required the plans to account for something closer to 1,550 to 1,600 people once outdoor space was factored in, according to reporting from both New Pelican and Coastal News South Florida. That's not a rounding difference. It's nearly a fourfold jump in required capacity, and it meant Paterson's team had to scrap an already-approved design and start over.
Coastal News quoted Paterson describing the redesign as something that "came at great cost." The building that eventually emerged from that process grew along with the capacity requirement. The Lighthouse Point Yacht Club's own development page now lists the final design at 45,850 gross square feet, including 35,500 square feet of air-conditioned space and a 19,475-square-foot rooftop deck, a meaningfully larger building than the 43,000 square feet originally proposed.
The Standoff Over Who Goes First
The third delay had nothing to do with construction at all. It was a dispute over sequencing. Lighthouse Point's development agreement required Paterson to show the city commission proof of financial viability before demolition could begin. Paterson's position was that he couldn't finalize bank financing until he had a clear demolition timeline to show his lenders. The city's position was that the agreement said financing came first.
Commissioners split over how to handle it. Commission President Sandy Johnson pushed to let the demolition proceed anyway, telling colleagues:
"Let's expedite the demolition. It will improve the property, take away a liability and a derelict building."
Mayor Kyle Van Buskirk agreed the building was a hazard in its current state and said it was time to make a decision. Commissioner Jason Joffe disagreed, calling early demolition premature and arguing that as long as a building stood on the site, a future owner would be more likely to actually build a club rather than walk away from the project. Commissioner Patty Patrone sided with Joffe, saying the commission had already put in the work to reach a development agreement and shouldn't undermine it. The motion to allow early demolition failed for lack of a second vote.
The sequencing fight was still alive in the spring of 2024, which is when Schwantes asked his question. Commission President Mike Long's answer that day was that "the financial liability is ready to go." A month later, Paterson asked the commission to amend the development agreement so demolition could start ahead of a full financing sign-off, then retracted the request once he realized routing it through the Planning and Zoning Board would push any decision past September. He said the commission could have approved his request by mid-July if it had moved at a normal pace.
What Changes Now for Members and Neighbors
The demolition that finally happened this month sets a construction clock in motion. According to the Lighthouse Point Yacht Club's own development page, the project is expected to take approximately 28 months to complete, which puts a realistic grand opening sometime in early 2029.
The new clubhouse, once finished, is planned to include:
- A 280-person banquet hall on the second floor, designed to be divided into two separate spaces for smaller events
- An indoor fine dining restaurant and piano lounge
- An outdoor tapas bar
- A 78-slip, full-service deep-water marina
Current members are being told they'll be financially grandfathered into the new club, with no additional initiation fees or new assessments tied to the rebuild. The club's own materials anticipate a non-refundable initiation fee for new members in the $35,000 to $50,000 range as the project nears completion, though that figure comes from the club rather than an independent source and could shift before the doors open.
For the tennis players, swimmers, and boaters who use the property day to day, the more immediate news is that the disruption is supposed to be partial rather than total. The club says its five Har-Tru clay tennis courts, fitness center, kids' activity area, outdoor dining, junior Olympic-sized pool, and marina slips are meant to keep operating throughout construction. Anyone tying up a boat at the marina this fall will be doing it next to an active job site rather than a shuttered one, but the slips themselves aren't going anywhere in the meantime.
Even the smaller numbers in this project shifted along the way. Early reporting put the townhome count at 22 units, and New Pelican's 2024 coverage of the site at 2701 NE 27th Street referenced 21. The clubhouse grew from 43,000 square feet to 45,850, and the capacity it was designed for rose from roughly 400 people to well over 1,500. Between the 2017 purchase and this month's demolition, very little of the original plan stayed the same.
The Schirripa Group keeps an eye on projects like this because they shape the streets and shoreline around them long after the ribbon-cutting. If you're curious how a redevelopment like the Lighthouse Point Yacht Club rebuild might affect a specific block or property nearby, The Schirripa Group is a good place to start that conversation.
