News

By Steve Plunkett

A consultant’s plan for Silver Palm Park would add a third boat ramp and 16 more spaces to park boat trailers to the city’s only launch site.
It also would put “shade sails” along the seawall to give boat watchers by the Intracoastal Waterway some respite from the afternoon sun.
“One thing we learned very early is that it’s hot. When we were out there I kept trying to find the smallest piece of shade,” consultant Kona Gray of EDSA Inc. told a group of about 65 Boca Raton residents who gathered Sept. 26 for an outreach session on plans for the park.
He and his team went to the park July 14, a Saturday, to see how people use it.
The residents overwhelmingly preferred Gray’s concept with the 16 extra parking spaces to another that left more green space but added only two spaces for trailers.
Retired firefighter Bill Trinka said Silver Palm is primarily a boat launch.
“This park has a function that we really, really need,” Trinka said.
Gray also plans to put a new sign and a more inviting pedestrian entrance at the park’s northwest corner, on Palmetto Park Road and Southeast Fifth Avenue.
Now, “It doesn’t feel like you’re walking into a park from this corner,” he said.
Gray asked attendees to write down suggestions for improving his concept so he could refine the plan before he presents it to the City Council in November. Comments made at the outreach session included moving the restroom away from its location at the base of the Palmetto Park Bridge to give people more room to see the waterway. Other residents wanted to delete palm trees proposed to help delineate trailer parking spots.
Gray said it could take up to 12 months to create construction drawings after council members decide in November what design elements to keep. The city budgeted $50,000 to pay for the plans and has $1.5 million tagged in its long-range plan for the 2020 budget year.
The budget also includes $1 million this budget year and $2 million the following year to build a park at the Wildflower site just to the north, which will connect to Silver Palm.