Florida Panthers Arena

Someone recently asked me why this is my profile pic. The simple answer is, it is a favorite pic, at a destination I invested an amazing personal effort into.

Let’s start with my obvious conflict of interest, with my love of hockey. When you strap on your first pair of skates at the same time you first start walking, the sport is love. Most of you who know me, know I’ve played some hockey.

At the time the Panthers Arena was going through the Development of Regional Impact process, I was the Acting Director of Planning for the City of Plantation. The Mayor came to me and said “kill this project.” My response was, give me an opportunity to make it work. Having a good grasp on traffic engineering and politics, I genuinely believed I had a solution. This had become a huge dispute between the City of Sunrise and City of Plantation.

Now for those of you who knew Mayor Frank Veltri, you didn’t ask the Mayor to stand down without good reason and cause.

Needless to say, the County Commissioners were blowing up my phone. Everyone wanted the Panthers in Sunrise. I had the solution, I just needed all the stakeholders to pony up the money to finance the solution. The City Manager of Sunrise came through to save the deal.

Well, we worked it out. All parties agreed that the solution was a southbound ramp (directly from the arena parking lot) onto Sawgrass Expressway to divert traffic away from the City of Plantation, which is now known as Patrick Salerno Way (the then City Manager of Sunrise).

The arena deal got approved and while under construction, I bought my first house a mile away from the arena. I have watched more hockey games in that arena than all other arenas combined and I’ve watched games in the majority of NHL arenas!

Moral of the story: NEVER TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER!

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