By Mary Thurwachter
A plan to improve Lantana’s Public Beach has been talked about for years, but in August council members and residents got a chance to hear about a conceptual site plan.
“During the visioning session in April everybody had beach improvements on the top of their lists,” Town Manager Brian Raducci said.
“Just to be very clear, this is going to be an expensive project because of the time that’s involved and because of the funding,” he said. “We want to keep it as a functional beach through the entire process.”
Even before the visioning session, when the town worked on its Master Plan in 2023, people were talking about what they would like to see happen at the beach, Mayor Karen
Lythgoe added. “It’s time now to let this percolate up and see what we can come up with.”
Joe Barry, president at CPZ Architects, Inc., presented the plan. The town paid CPZ $299,450 to produce it.
The aim, Barry said, is to create a vibrant and engaging public space that encompasses a restaurant, boardwalk, pavilions and various other park amenities. The project “seeks to maximize the use of this public asset, ensuring it serves both community and visitor needs.”
During the first phase (there will be two or three phases), Barry said, the tentative plan calls for new restaurant space for the Dune Deck, demolishing an existing pavilion that is no longer usable, replacing the north end of the boardwalk and beach entrance, relocating the surfboard racks and adding new restrooms. Event space may be built on the second floor of the restaurant, and the marine safety office, with a view of the beach, will remain on the second level of the building on the south end.
The second phase, in place of the existing restaurant building, may include ice cream or pizza shops with outdoor tables and umbrellas at ground level. The boardwalk will be fortified or rebuilt and may be widened.
Other ideas being considered include observation towers with coin-operated binoculars or telescopes, landscaping and parking improvements, upgrading the kids playground with shade structures and perhaps a splash pad, and dune improvements.
Also on the maybe list in the second phase are an amphitheater and parking structure, EV charging stations and a fishing pier and/or an artificial reef.
“If the fishing pier turns out to be a realistic option, we’d consider a structure at the end of Dorothy Rissler (Lane) to provide an option to collect a small fee to access the pier,” Barry said.
Three women shared their views during public comments.
Patricia Towle, who lives on Hypoluxo Island, said the beach was the town’s crown jewel and that the town had one chance to get it right. She isn’t a fan of the expansive plans.
“I think maybe we need to think about maybe less is more,” Towle said. “Because when I go to the beach, I want two things: I want beautiful white sand, and I want a great ocean. I don’t really care about restaurants; I can go to restaurants anywhere. I don’t care about a media hall or all of the other stuff. I really think we should focus on just emphasizing the beach, doing great landscaping.
“That’s why I love Delray and Ocean Ridge. They’re just beaches with native trees and greenery and you feel like you’re really relaxed. You don’t have to worry about bumping shoulders with people eating. I think the architects presented great ideas. But Mother Nature is a great architect, and she does trees and sand and ocean, and I just don’t want to see us overbuild. I’d like to see it kept really pristine and nice.”
Daisy Panais, a co-owner of the Dune Deck, had other thoughts, “I’m completely opposite of what you just said,” she said to Towle. “I do love a beautiful beach, nature and relaxing, but I also know that we have a lot of families — they want to bring their children, they want to play, they want something to eat. We have people coming in from up north from Boston, from New York and they just love coming to Lantana Beach. We’ve seen generations of children grow up, get married and come to the Dune Deck. I do think that a restaurant is necessary and well appreciated. But I think we could work with both, we could have a beautiful beach with nature. It’s not too crowded.”
The parking lot is an issue, Panais said. “When it’s a beautiful day, a perfect beach day, there’s no parking. People come up and they’re frustrated. They’re driving around and around and they can’t find a spot. They may go across the street and take a chance at a spot in the plaza.”
Another Hypoluxo Island resident, Ellen Schweber, said she liked the plans.
“The Dune Deck is great, and a night restaurant would also be something terrific to have if it were sitting on the water like the Dune Deck with kind of a Malibu-type vibe. But I think putting in a second-floor event space is a complete waste.”
Barry said the idea is to come up with a plan that can be used in the next steps to actually design, engineer and permit the project. “That’s what we’re outlining here to work toward that,” he said.
Now it’s up to the Town Council to prioritize and decide what the town can afford.
