Over the last year or so, the Boca Raton City Council has approved changes to encourage more development in the northwest part of the city. That development is coming.

The newest proposal is for a mixed-use project on the site of Office Depot’s headquarters at 6600 N. Military Trail. It would have 500 apartments and 630,000 square feet of commercial space.

According to documents filed with the city, the residential component would be “tied to” the Park Place shopping plaza just to the south. The overall project would provide a “true mixture of uses.” The Office Depot site, just south of Clint Moore Road, is roughly 30 acres.

Farther east, a mixed-use project is proposed for a 10-acre site at 791 Park of Commerce Boulevard. It would have 226 apartments and 17 townhouses. According to documents filed with the city, the project would include “renovating and rejuvenating” the office building on the property. The site is near the popular El Rio Trail.

Current rules do not allow residential development at that location. But the developer is filing under new state and local rules that, among other things, require cities to allow housing if the project meets certain criteria.

In return, the developer would make 10% of the units affordable housing and another 5% workforce housing, based on household income levels. Ten percent of the units at 6600 N. Military Trail would be affordable housing.

In addition, a developer previously had filed an application to develop the roughly eight-acre site near the Tri-Rail station on Yamato Road. The developer would lease the land from the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority, which operates Tri-Rail.

That project would have 340 apartments and nearly 30,000 square feet of commercial development. It also would make 10% of the units affordable housing and 5% workforce housing. Unlike the first two, it would require several pages of “technical deviations” from current rules.

In a related action, the city approved changes that would allow a major makeover of the former IBM campus just west of the Tri-Rail property. Known as the Boca Raton Innovation Campus, the owner wants to add residential and market the property as the best tech incubator in the Southeast. The northwest is the city’s biggest job cluster.

Given the state’s new Live Local Act, there likely will be even more housing proposed for this part of Boca Raton. All three of these projects are still going through staff review. None has been scheduled for a hearing before an advisory board.

Approved projects by the Boca CRA

Elsewhere in Boca Raton, the latest report from the community redevelopment agency (CRA) shows that it issued six approvals for downtown projects last year. Collectively, though, they don’t amount to much.

The most significant were for the Aletto office project just east of Sanborn Square and The Residences of Boca, a 190-unit luxury rental building that would remake several aging blocks between Dixie Highway and Federal Highway. The others were for a four-unit residential project, conversion of a small property to an office and two restaurants.

More than four decades ago, the city created the CRA to oversee what then was considered a blighted downtown, hard as that might be for newcomers to believe. Each year, the CRA compiles a report for property owners within the CRA boundaries—downtown, basically—who pay a special assessment toward improvements in the area.

Under the plan drawn up at the time, downtown development is capped at 8 million square feet of “office-equivalent” space. Office use generates the most traffic, so the actual square footage will be higher. Retail generates less, and residential generates the least of all. So the actual amount of developed square footage could be higher than eight million.

According to the city, roughly 11% of that space is left. Development also must be balanced among all the areas that make up downtown, so one doesn’t get overloaded.

Two downtown residential projects are under construction: the 350-unit Camino Square—comprised of apartments—and the 201-unit second phase of Alina, the luxury condo complex across Mizner Boulevard from Royal Palm Place. Retail is planned for Camino Square.

Work also continues on the Mandarin Oriental Hotel and condos that will be part of Via Mizner on Federal Highway north of Camino Real. City approval for those phases came nearly nine years ago, and they remain unfinished.

More on FAU’s next presidential search

Here are a few more thoughts from the imminent start of Florida Atlantic University’s next presidential search.

As I wrote last week, Trustees Chair Piero Bussani pledged to hold a “transparent” process. But a 2022 state law allows a search to be anything but transparent.

Before that law, the names of all those wanting to be university presidents became public when they applied. Now, however, disclosure doesn’t happen until a search committee announces the finalists—and only the names of the finalists become public. It’s an exemption to the public records law that all news organizations opposed.

Under this system, a search committee could present just one finalist. That happened at the University of Florida. This year, Sen. Tina Polsky, D-Boca Raton, sponsored a bill that would have required search committees to pick at least three finalists and no more than five. It died in committee.

Last year, after Gov. Ron DeSantis had made clear that he wanted State Rep. Randy Fine, R-Palm Bay, to be FAU’s president, no one outside of the trustees knew whether Fine even had applied. He had. Fine did not become a finalist, and two days after the list became public, State University System Ray Rodrigues suspended the search.

Even with multiple finalists, there may not be true transparency. When former Florida House Speaker and Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran became one of three finalists for the presidency of New College, it was clear that he had the inside track as a key ally of Gov. DeSantis. The New College trustees picked him.

I have tried repeatedly to speak with Bussani about the search. He has not responded.

Boca Arts Center receives grant for construction

The Center for Arts & Innovation (TCAI) has received an $865,000 grant from the county’s Cultural Arts Council toward construction of a performing arts center in Mizner Park.

In a news release, David Lawrence, the council’s CEO, said, “We can’t wait to see this project come to life.” It would be on the northeast corner of Mizner Park, combined with the amphitheater next door. The city has approved a lease of the land, based on TCIA meeting fundraising goals. TCAI met the first last year. The second milestone comes in October.

Boca performance reviews

Scheduled for tonight’s Boca Raton City Council meeting are performance reviews for City Manager George Brown and City Attorney Diana Frieser. 

Brown has had the job only since January, so he may not get a full review after such a short time. His predecessor, Leif Ahnell, had the job for a quarter-century. Years before Ahnell left, council members had stopped giving formal evaluations.

Like Ahnell, Frieser started in 1999. Like Ahnell, she long has received just verbal comments in public. She is nearing retirement, but council members might want to ask about the city’s recent losing streak on lawsuits related to development of two oceanfront lots.

Boca spends big on marketing for centennial celebration

I wrote last week that Boca Raton will hire a marketing consultant to help with commemoration of the city’s centennial next May. Given what the consultant will cost, the city is planning quite a celebration.

According to the staff memo, the city will pay Boca Raton-based Merit Mile almost $468,000. The city already has a communications and marketing department. Merit Mile’s website says the company’s “results…are measured in various formats; sometimes in the form of quantifiable metrics and sometimes in the form of marketplace awareness.”