The Sky Is Not Falling. Why is A New Boca Government Campus Fast-tracked?

There is a saying that claims “The Wheels of Government Move Slowly”. For the most part it’s true. However, in the City of Boca Raton, a recent initiative to replace our downtown ballfields, tennis center, skatepark, shuffleboard, basketball court and government campus with a transit oriented development can’t seem to move fast enough through the departments at City Hall. At a time when Brightline has failed to be the expected “Game Changer” and the wind whistles through our empty $11 million dollar taxpayer funded parking garage, now is the time to make your voice heard about turning over City owned land for redevelopment.

Like Wildflower, it stinks of a backroom “done deal”. Read on for details. This article is long but the topic is of utmost importance. The entire public recreational facility downtown is at stake. There’s a button at the end of this article to email your elected officials.

Ms Toothaker will choose the related developer for the Transit Development/Government Campus

It starts with something weird and someone named Stephanie Toothaker

At the July 22 2024 City workshop, the agenda item “City Hall Campus Master Plan / Transit Oriented Community RFQ” was slated for discussion. However, quite out of ordinary, Mayor Singer (with full consensus from the City Council) requested that this item be removed from the Agenda. As a result, no presentation and no discussion took place. The item had two attachments:

1. A nine page memo dated June 28, 2024 from City Manager George Brown with the Subject: “Government Campus Master Plan Consulting Services”, which was sent to the Mayor and City Council.
2. A five page presentation prepared by City Staff to be included in the presentation.

The directive of the memo is to create an RFQ (request for qualifications) in order to hire a consultant to guide the City in the implementation of a Public-Private-Partnership (P3) for the purposes of:

1. Building a Transit Oriented Development surrounding the underperforming Brightline station
2. Building a new City Hall (Government campus)

If I’m reading it right, the memo reveals a Fort Lauderdale attorney Stephanie Toothaker has been chosen and contracted for this. According to the memo, Ms Toothaker will:

• Choose the related developer for the Transit Development/Government Campus
• Create the all encompassing agreement
• Guide the potential of changing Ordinance 4035 which is the governing law for development of our Downtown District (amount of development rights, building heights, number of residential units etc).

Lastly, the memo emphasizes the need to move forward with rapid speed for a TOD/government campus Master Plan but later says (as highlighted below), in effect, the City has a plan: “proceeding with our own overall plan. . .so that we may . . . control the narrative”. Where is the City’s plan? What is the plan?

Where will the Public Private Partnership (P3) Be Implemented?

A P3 development can be good thing but given our history, it probably won’t. The way it works is that a private company (developer) provides necessary funding to develop the public buildings in the government campus in exchange for development rights on City owned land (e..g. the City gives away public land). But after 20 years of ad-hoc silo’d downtown redevelopment, how can we trust the most important development in Boca Raton since Mizner Park to a fast-tracked effort? This should be a referendum. More on that later.

According to the June 28 Memo, the property affected is “All City-owned property west of the FEC rail north of Palmetto and south of NW 4^th Diagonal” (see green highlighted area in Figure 3). The memo further states the consultant will address “TOD/TOC regulations for the area adjacent to the Brightline Station…” but does not define it specifically.

City officials need to seize this last opportunity to create some uniqueness and connectivity. It is sorely needed.

A Brief City History is in Order

Our City has a short but interesting history. Everyone should visit Old City Hall at 71 N. Federal Hwy for an interesting education on all things Boca at the Schmidt Boca Raton History Museum. There’s parking in the rear.

But that is not the way you plan a “World Class City” for the future. So we don’t have one. City officials need to seize this last opportunity to create some uniqueness and connectivity. It is sorely needed. Unfortunately, this TOD/Government Campus P3 looks like more of the same. Read on.

Bear in mind, Boca’s Brightline Station is a Failure

Today we are a financially successful, growing city and a desirable place to live but with a serious mobility and quality of life problem downtown. At the same time, our government facilities are in need of a facelift and we are saddled with an orphaned Brightline station that doesn’t serve the city as promised:

• Stops for the Boca Raton Brightline Station were recently severely cut back
• Commuter pricing was eliminated
• The price of tickets were raised and are now stratospheric

Below was the VTUSA proposal back when everyone was a gush about “Game Changer” Brightline and leaders were ready with a sweetheart deal to give away city owned property for a TOD (see Proposed Brightline Lease Agreement: What you Need to Know for more history).

It didn’t work out that way. This is now. We are at a moment in time that is thirsting for comprehensive urban planning with emphasis on:

1. A park for our ballfields, courts and urban activities
2. Non-vehicular pathways east toward Mizner, west to an extended El Rio Trail and North/South on an urban spine
3. Buildings in the TOD/government campus that don’t overwhelm

Back to the Memo…Is The Sky Falling?

I found the City Manager’s memo unusual on a number of levels. There is an unusual emphasis on speeding this initiative through the process. The four items below caught my attention. The parenthetical reference in item 2 is a red flag. Similar language is mentioned several times throughout the memo. Does this signal a company is already identified and there will be no competitive process? Again, the sky is not falling.

1. As mentioned previously, the demand to make this happen ASAP.

“master plan will be expedited as much as possible”, “shovel in the ground as soon as possible”, “we must act with urgency”, “consultants ability to move swiftly”, “completed as expeditiously as possible”.

2. The ability to hire a Consultant without the implementation of a competitive RFQ (p.1 of memo)

“Development of a City/CRA issued request for proposals for potential P3 development of the campus under the general parameters developed above (if no unsolicited and acceptable P3 proposal is not sooner received)”

3. The consultant (Stephanie Toothaker) has already been selected and contracted

“A work order to the consultant . . . has been issued”

4. The ability to hire a developer without the implementation of a competitive RFP (p.6,7 of memo).

“The Consultant will develop proposed details of the P3 process for implementation . . .or as the result of the receipt of an unsolicited proposal for development”

You would think developers would be circling like a falcon as a falcon knows when prey is around. But with “unsolicited proposal” mentioned so many times, it looks more like a done deal: there’s a plan, a consultant and an “unsolicited proposal” (developer) circling, ready to pounce.

One Must Ask … Doesn’t This Size-able Development Require A Referendum?

In the five slide Powerpoint prepared by City Staff, the following timeline for a “Gov’t Campus/TOC” was given. TOC stands for Transit Oriented Community which is the same as TOD but uses the focus tested word “Community”; a word easier on the ears of an unknowing public.

This undertaking is sizeable and involves City-owned land. Land that is technically owned by residents of Boca. It involves a significant re-zoning in the form of a transit oriented development that will expand building heights to as yet unknown levels near the Brightline Station (see 2019 visualization below). There are a number of examples in Boca Raton’s development history where voters had a voice and a choice. Some examples:

• 1974 Referendum for the purchase of beach property (Red Reef Park).
• 1988 Referendum for Ordinance 4035 (ruling document for Downtown development) and related Mizner Park vote for public land development.
• 2003 Referendum to annex Santa Barbara Community.
• 2003 Referendum to annex Town Center Mall.
• 2016 Referendum to develop Wildflower public land property as a park. 

For something of such importance with major impacts to have a schedule moving at warp speed is mind boggling if not outright suspicious. As of this writing, some of the deadlines have already passed. Based on past history, this size-able area targeted for redevelopment of public land and creation of a TOC requiring a rezoning deserves a referendum.

The City Council, acting in the best interest of citizens, has the power on its own to create such referendum.

The Mayor Took Action. So Should You.

The optimist in me says maybe this is why the Mayor chose to pull it from public discussion. Hopefully, the absurdity of fast tracking something of this magnitude is grasped and wiser heads prevail. The City Council, acting in the best interest of citizens, has the power on its own to create such a referendum.

Over the years I have too often heard ”how did that happen?” or “when was that approved?” If you agree that the Boca Raton Downtown government center redevelopment is important to be done right, based on where we are today and done comprehensively, then use the link below to tell the mayor and council this is a very important future development of our City that needs to be done for all the city, not built around a single underperforming train station for a few. It needs to be a referendum on the March 2025 ballot. Doing so could make this council the most consequential in Boca Raton’s modern era.