Fort Lauderdale is maxing out on cemetery space. Could closed Broward schools be the fix?
Fort Lauderdale is running out of cemetery space.
One potential solution? Turning shuttered Broward County schools into more burial space.
During a city commission conference Tuesday, Mike Watson, the District 1 representative for the city’s Cemetery System Board of Trustees, urged commissioners to consider it as an option, saying city-owned cemeteries are almost full and more space is needed. Last year, the Broward County School Board asked Superintendent Peter Licata to identify five schools to close or repurpose by 2025 because of low enrollment.
“I honestly understand the school board has not made a decision but want to make sure you are aware of the need,” Watson told the commission. He noted there are about eight schools in the city where there would be additional space to accommodate an extra cemetery.
Licata, who recently announced his retirement, had told the school board that he would provide a recommendation on schools that should close so that board members could vote in June, but no specific plans for schools have been announced ahead of the June 18 deadline.
Fort Lauderdale has four city-owned cemeteries, with one of the oldest being Evergreen Cemetery, where Fort Lauderdale’s pioneering families are buried. Woodlawn, another city-owned cemetery, is historically a resting place for pioneering Black families.
Lauderdale Memorial Park Cemetery, which has plots for veterans, is home to one of the largest Memorial Day gatherings in the city. The fourth cemetery, Sunset Memorial Gardens, sits on the western part of the city and spans 30 acres.
The issue of space was first raised at March 14 Cemetery System Board of Trustees meeting, in which members voted 4-1 to ask commissioners to consider using closed schools for more burial space. According to meeting minutes, members suggested James S. Rickards Middle School, which sits off of Dixie Highway; North Side Elementary School near East Sunrise Boulevard; and Bennett Elementary School, not far from North Federal Highway.
In an email to the Miami Herald, Stacy Spates, the city’s program manager for municipal cemeteries, said of its 57,000 plots, Lauderdale Memorial has about 10,500 available. Evergreen, which has 9,000 plots, only has 450 available, and Sunset’s 33,000 plots are completely full. Woodlawn, which has deteriorated since the ‘90s, currently does not allow burials.
Spates said at least 15 to 20 acres will be needed to build an additional cemetery. But other factors would need to be determined before the city builds a new cemetery on any of the school sites.
“The city would need to perform a survey to determine viability of the property if the commission approves the measure,” Spates said.
Other uses are also being considered for any Broward schools that would close, including affordable housing.
“There are many people that think that if it does come to pass where the school board is going to close or sell properties, schools, that this maybe is not the best way to go with those sites,” Commissioner Steven Glassman said about the cemetery plan during this week’s city commission conference. “They would rather see something like adaptive reuse of those buildings for affordable housing. In other words, this is a conversation that we I think we need to have in the future about what exactly what happens when the school board sites are closed.”
Spates said outside of the proposal to use closed school sites, there are no alternative plans for where to build more cemeteries.
Miami Herald reporter Jimena Tavel contributed to this report.
