FAU Student District
Florida Atlantic University President John Kelly wants everything done yesterday. Boca Raton Mayor Susan Haynie believes that one of Kelly’s priorities will take more like a year, which probably is a good thing.
Kelly wants very much to create a student-centric district along 20th Street to Dixie Highway, in the process creating a new “gateway” entrance to the university. Though most people now reach FAU from Glades Road to the south, the eastern entrance once was the main gateway to the property. Kelly has said often that unlike other universities where he has worked there is no distinctive neighborhood adjoining FAU, such as High Street next to Ohio State University.
Boca Raton officials also like the idea. Last week, Mayor Susan Haynie attended a presentation at FAU’s Ritter Art Galley of student renderings for what the area could look like. The students, Haynie said in an interview,
“have a very exciting vision.” She was glad to see that FAU envisions a district only one block south and north of Dixie. “I would have had pause,” Haynie said, “if they had wanted to go farther.” Also, the work by some of FAU’s architecture and urban planning students presumes nothing higher than three-story buildings.
Haynie also was very impressed—and I agree—with the amount of research and outreach the students conducted. Frank Schnidman, of FAU’s School of Urban and Regional Planning, told me that the students know all the property owners in the potential district and the relevant mortgage information. They asked property owners to attend last week’s presentation, and some did. Because of what the students did, the city has a head start.
From here, though, the city has to lead. Creating the district will require land-use and zoning changes. Haynie told me Wednesday that the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council will provide the city with a cost estimate for a study of the 20th Street corridor. The study could suggest some “zoning scenarios” for what most likely would be retail and residential geared toward students. The transportation portion of the study would be paid for through the Metropolitan Planning Organization. The city would pay for other items, such as zoning. The city council would have to approve the planning council’s proposal.
The University Park apartment complex recently opened on 20th Street. Jerry’s Pizza and the nearby Jimmy John’s and Dunkin Donuts franchises obviously would continue to fit in any new design for the corridor. Some property owners, however, could be wary. The city, Haynie said, plans a “very significant public outreach and community involvement.” Haynie also believes that FAU should be responsible for policing.
Kelly sees the 20th Street district as part of his effort to make FAU more of a traditional campus, and Schnidman said it’s also part of a wider effort to create a better relationship between the university and the city. FAU hired Kelly from Clemson, which Princeton Review just ranked as having the best “town-gown” relationship of any college in the country. Schnidman compared FAU to a “medieval town with a moat around it,” referring to the El Rio Canal. With a better relationship, he said, more city residents would know about, and come to movies at FAU’s Living Room Theaters, culture events and football games.
Twentieth Street, Schnidman acknowledged, “is not going to be Harvard Square.” But Haynie and other city leaders agree with Kelly that the project has great potential benefits for FAU and Boca Raton. Investors already are checking out the area. Ideally, Haynie said, the city could be ready to vote on ordinances in a year. If the benefits come, even the famously impatient Kelly will consider the wait to have been worth it.
Jupiter’s biotech program
Unfortunately, FAU will have to wait at least a year on another priority: a building at the Jupiter campus for the new biotech program.
Though legislators stuck many pet projects into the new state budget, FAU’s appropriation didn’t make it. FAU will continue to recruit students for the program, which the university will run in conjunction with Scripps Florida and the Max Planck Florida Institute. According to a Palm Beach County lobbyist, FAU did get $3.5 million from the state toward operating expenses for science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) programs. And at today’s Board of Governors meeting, FAU hopes to recover the rest of the $7 million it lost for poor performance in the 2013-14 academic year.
How Boca fared in the budget
Boca Raton did better than FAU in the last-minute—they’re always last-minute_budget negotiations.
The city got $1.7 million toward beach renourishment from south of Red Reef Park to the Boca Raton Inlet. According to Assistant City Manager Mike Woika, the project is scheduled for this winter. Renourishment of the section to the north was completed this year.
Atlantic Crossing
You could sense frustration Tuesday as Delray Beach city commissioners listened to a presentation from representatives of Atlantic Crossing.
The developers are proposing a new site plan that would return an access road to the two-square-block project from Federal Highway. The road, first called Atlantic Court, would help relieve traffic on Atlantic Avenue. Atlantic Court was in the original site plan, but then wasn’t when the commission approved it in January 2014. The road does remain on the plat.
Only one commissioner, Al Jacquet, remains from the commission that in December 2012 approved Atlantic Crossing. Jacquet voted against it. This commission doesn’t much like Atlantic Crossing, but is stuck with it.
As the presenter ran animated traffic simulations, you could see why residents of neighborhoods south of Atlantic Avenue and east across the bridge worry so much about traffic backing up on Atlantic. One speaker during public comment noted, correctly, that starting in 2017 All Aboard Florida trains will force 32 more gate closings at the Florida East Coast Railway tracks about three blocks west of the project. Another commented that most people will enjoy Atlantic Crossing, but those living nearby will “get screwed.” The new road will help, but no one on the commission said that it will be a big help.
Rather than choose either version of the road proposed by the developers, the commission will ask for guidance from a traffic engineer. Because the road would be a minor modification, Mayor Cary Glickstein believes that by August or September the developers could obtain certification of the new site plan, final plat approval and approval of a development agreement.
Shelly Petrolia summed up the commission sentiment by saying that while she doesn’t like the overall outcome—the size of Atlantic Crossing—getting the road back is “a victory,” which she credits to civic nagging by residents. Jarjura also probably is right that the developers must manage the flow of traffic from the garages. “We are making,” Glickstein said, “the best of the tough hand we were dealt.”
