Boca Raton Sets Priorities for New City Hall Development Proposals, Due This Week

The site of a proposed city government and redevelopment project near the Brightline station in Boca Raton, FL. (Photo: Boca Daily News)

Boca Raton officials on Tuesday night held a special council meeting to discuss priorities surrounding a potential public-private partnership to build a new city hall complex and adjacent commercial and residential development.

The city, through its consultant CBRE Group, has set a deadline of Thursday to receive proposals from firms interested in pursuing such a partnership. The proposals will be evaluated by CBRE, reviewed by council members and released to the public before an agreement is hatched between officials and a developer. The notional plan would tap private industry to build a new city government complex as part of a partnership in which the same company would construct commercial space, hundreds – if not thousands – of residential units, a potential hotel, and large public access areas near the Brightline high-speed rail station in the downtown district.

According to a schedule agreed-upon by officials Tuesday, proposals received this week will be ranked by Feb. 11, then published before one is selected for the project. An interim agreement is expected to be approved March 18, with a total of six public meetings where residents can be heard on the plan. One such meeting will be held in an “open house” format both in person and virtually so residents can interact with officials and view the plans for themselves. The proposals will also be published online.

The proposals are not likely to consist of actual renderings or specific development plans, but concepts of what the complex should look like and how it should be financed. The council, with a small amount of public comment, decided on the project’s priorities Tuesday night. The meeting was attended by many parties who are presumably potential developers.

Councilman Marc Wigder, responsive to public requests, emphasized that the project should come with significant amounts of public space for events and other purposes that would benefit residents. He suggested proposals include an outdoor entertainment space, a covered pavilion or an area for an outdoor market. A primary concern of some neighboring residents is how the complex will fit in with the surrounding area, which includes some of the city’s oldest neighborhoods.

“It should be integrated into the surrounding area – it’s got to fit in – and this is going to be a phased project,” Wigder said. “It’s not going to happen all at once, and the question is, ‘how do we do this’ in terms of construction and long-term jobs that will be a benefit to the city.”

“I want to see how their development is not siloed and how it is connected to other parts of the city,” he said, of future proposals.

Council members and Mayor Scott Singer also said they were interested in seeing options for relocating some city offices from the current city-owned property at the site if it means the overall development can be completed faster. Those options may consist of utilizing space in other city-owned offices, or leasing space on a temporary basis. The council appeared to have reached a consensus that a new police department substation in the downtown district is a must.

“Some people have brought up that we’re delaying rebuilds in the public realm by about two years” if offices are not relocated during construction, Singer said. “A short-term lease is a bridge for ‘x’ amount of space, whatever that is. CBRE is looking at square footage.”

Councilman Andy Thompson agreed.

“Once we occupy temporary space, it will give us an idea of what we absolutely need,” he said. “We don’t want a facility that is over-the-top or unnecessarily large. We want to have a high-quality workplace for our employees, because that’s what matters. But I will not stand for it to be over-the-top or opulent … we want a building that reflects our city and provides a professional space, but I wouldn’t support us going overboard.”

A neighboring resident, Lorraine Blank, said her primary concern was how the new complex would fit into the surrounding neighborhoods.

“I’m concerned that it doesn’t align with safety and quality of life in some of the oldest communities in Boca,” she said. “They are the ones that are going to be the most impacted. The thought of having a hotel a couple blocks from these communities horrifies me. It’s going to have an affect on traffic, on our security and on the environment.”

“Boca, to me, represents a part-city with beautiful interstitials and open spaces,” said fellow resident Alfred Bonner. “As we put these proposals together, my request, as a citizen, is whether there’s really a commitment to public space and public use.”

Singer said public space would be a central part of the development project.

“The council has consistently directed that we want a district focused on the public realm, including a great deal of open space that is usable,” he said.

Ultimately, council members will be tasked with sifting through the proposals, which will be hundreds of pages long. But all of the city’s elected officials openly asked residents to voice their concerns, engage with them, and come to meetings in order to map out a plan for whichever private firm is chosen for the project.

“Our job is to set the city on the right path for the next 50 years,” said Singer.