It’s said that when all you have is a hammer, everything is a nail. Boca resident Andrey Zherikov recently completed an analysis of the last two years of the current city council’s voting record and posted his results on NextDoor. Statistically, the results raise red flags:
- 60 out of 60 development & land use projects approved. Zero denied. A 100% approval rate for developers.
- Out of 286 individual votes cast on development items, only 2 were “no”. That’s a 99.3% rubber stamp.
- Across ALL categories — not just development — 420 out of 433 votes were unanimous. That’s 𝟵𝟳% of the time this council votes in lockstep … Zero votes failed.
So, when it came to fixing our aging City Hall, Community Center and Police Station, the solution seems to have been through the lens of a development centric approach. There is another way: Use public land for the public. In this article, I present a series of drawings showing what could be done without the millstone of a Public Private Partnership (P3). It is the choice we were not given other than voting NO on both the Police Station and 99-year lease ballot questions.
The Government Campus (GC) is Not Just Another Development Project.
The GC is a critical node in connecting residents on both sides of “The Tracks”. When it comes to connectivity and mobility, here is the strategic public land we are fortunate enough to work with:
This is the existing mobility infrastructure in this zone. It’s disconnectedness is one reason why traffic in this area is congested: It lacks a connected grid for people to get around in something other than a car: Self Inflicted Congestion.
The development of the GC is critical to solving this problem. I spoke many times with the team at Terra Frisbie about connectivity and they incorporated them wherever possible. This is what is needed in any solution going forward.
The Current GC
This is a satellite view of the public land (outlined in orange) that forms the GC. The One Boca proposal incorporates the use of two privately owned lots (Boca Color Graphics and The Speech Center) as shown. For simplicity, the non-P3 concept in this article assumes the use of those lots but it could be done with out them.
For those unfamiliar, a land use diagram shows how the area is an expanse of open space and clear views. Buildings are one, two or three stories tall. Roughly speaking, there’s around 300 parking spaces on the West side, 400 on the East and 160 for the library (61 are inside the Brightline parking garage). Anecdotally, residents in the area say the garage runs at 50% capacity.
The Choice Not Given
I haven’t met anyone who doesn’t want to update Memorial Park and our government buildings. Any objections have to do with leasing public land for 99 years as is proposed by the P3 in ballot question #2 and “Taj Mahal Police Station” in Ballot Question #1. Arguably, the budget for doing the renovations ourselves can be said to be that which the current council was willing to spend to make a P3 work with hope of a payback many say won’t happen (see “$4 billion in revenues, really?“). The budget for the P3 can be viewed as:
- $100-$200 million for infrastructure to support seven 12-story Transit District buildings (See “What’s Really At Stake …” for details)
- $190M for the police station
- $12M to delete the ball fields
- $3.6M to delete the skate park
- $200M allowance for new Memorial Park, City Hall, Community Center and Police Substation
That’s a budget of roughly $500-$600 million. Doing the redevelopment ourselves saves on infrastructure costs right off the top because land use is staying pretty much the same. If north Boca wants a skate park, build a skate park in north Boca. We don’t need to delete the Memorial Park skate park. Similarly, if the girls softball league needs new fields in Sugar Sand Park (Urban Forests: Why We Must Fight to Preserve Boca Raton’s), that should stand on its own merits with the Beach and Parks District. We don’t need to delete all the ball fields in Memorial Park to make up for losing green space to a Transit District. Lastly, by not building seven 12-story transit district buildings, we have the entire 31 acres to work with for a new campus. Here is the 31 acre blank slate:
DO NOT TOUCH!
Some things in the 31 acres should not be touched; namely, the parking lot around the banyans and the flood control area for Brightline. If you’ve heard Dr Blank speak in city chambers, you know why the area around the banyans should be a low-no renovation zone. Given that, the campus looks like this:
Renovate some things in place.
Some areas can be renovated/updated in place. The Children’s Museum, Tennis Center and Robert Pinchuk Memorial Field are three such areas.
When you have the whole East side of NW 2nd Ave to work with, an obvious solution to saving costs on a new community center is to renovate the current city hall into a new community center. It’s a great location with space potentially for indoor courts and activity rooms. It’s accessible from east and west entrances to Memorial park and is surrounded by parking.
The New Memorial Park
With the “Don’t Touch” and “Renovate In-Place” areas identified, the rest of Memorial park is an open canvas for more public amenities. I’m showing one approach using resident suggestions made over the months plus my own experience as a user. An important change that is needed is to enable east-west mobility through Memorial Park that is not currently available. I’ve chosen a pedestrian promenade that is lined up with NW 2nd St to enable that connectivity. The One Boca conceptual design included it as well. Another good idea in their concept was placing the Veterans War Memorial at the corner of Palmetto and NW 2nd Ave St. With all that, the campus looks like this:
The New Police and Government Center
With the public recreational amenities in place in Memorial Park, all the space on the East side is available for a new Police Station and City Hall. If you’ve been to the Police Station information sessions, you know a new station must be operational before the old one goes away. Without a transit district, the 3 city owned lots to the north of the current station amount to roughly the same space as is proposed on Spanish River Blvd. Below is one way the station might be built while leaving the current station operating. In this diagram, I assume the use of the two lots labelled “One Boca” in the blank slate for parity with the P3 proposal. It could be done without them.
As for City Hall, all but the executive offices are slated to be relocated to the $17M North Boca building at 6551 Park of Commerce Blvd. Some musical chairs are in order but as shown here, a new City Hall slightly larger than the one in the P3 Proposal could be be done in a phase after the police station but before the renovation of current city hall into a new Community Center. It’s not impossible. Where there is a will, there is a way.
Welcome to Addison Station
The final lot in the 31 acres of public land is the current police station. Given the low key retail plazas to its south, this is a natural area for a community gathering space with eateries and small businesses to complement and activate what’s already there. I’m showing it with a fountain, the historic Mizner Train Station plus its railroad cars. That’s just one idea to get creative minds going.
The Pedestrian Overpass: Boca Hi-Line
The railroad tracks, Dixie Hwy and US Rt 1 are significant barriers to downtown residents enjoying the amenities of Memorial Park and GC. Those roads also inhibit the use of the downtown by residents west of those barriers. The redevelopment of the government campus is an opportunity to implement the missing strategic connection between the dead ends of existing east and west infrastructure. In particular, it can connect the Brightline and GC with Mizner park. A raised “Hi-line” type of pedestrian walkway above NE 2nd St from City Hall to Mizner park would make a long overdue and critical connection. Vehicle and mobility stay at the street level with pedestrians above.
Altogether, a strategic redevelopment of public land for public use that retains existing amenities and also connects otherwise disconnected city centers, can be achieved.
What About the Transit District for Brightline?
When the leasing of public land to Brightline was approved and Boca spent $9 million on the parking garage, it was envisioned that two adjacent lots could someday be a Transit District. There were warnings then about the poor financial projection for Brightline and the risk that put on the City. The risk of Brightline failing are much more real today and the parking garage is massively underutilized. The approach provided here includes a way for the city to at least make some use of the severely underutilized city owned garage by using it for Police and Government Center employee parking. If a Transit District becomes financially feasible, the private sector can implement it. The properties along NW 1st Ave between Brightline and the proposed Addison Station are the logical location for that and such a development could complement the campus land use proposed here. The city’s role would be to incentivize the private sector by allowing TOD rights on those properties as shown in gray here:
Summary
Ballot Question #1 and #2 present significant taxpayer costs of hundreds of millions before providing any relief to the aging City Campus. This article describes an approach that accomplishes renovations using public land for public uses without depending on a promise of return in 30 years from a P3. It renovates public amenities, the government buildings, and adds public facing economic drivers along with the possibility for an eventual transit district by the private sector.
It is the choice we were not given other than voting NO on both the Police Station and 99-year lease ballot questions.
