Archstone, a 10-story, 378-unit complex, is planned for East Palmetto Park Road. Drawing provided
By Steve Plunkett
A 10-story apartment complex is the newest addition to Palmetto Park Road between the Intracoastal Waterway and Federal Highway.
The city’s Community Redevelopment Agency approved a slightly downsized 378-unit Archstone Palmetto Park project Feb. 27, after a contentious five-hour meeting Feb. 13. The agency postponed its vote to give the developer and Golden Triangle neighbors time to work out differences.
The neighbors were not wholly satisfied.
“I think there’s more work to be done regarding Archstone, but it is what it is,” said George O’Rourke, representing the Golden Triangle Neighborhood Association.
Deputy City Manager George Brown said the developer made concessions after hearing Golden Triangle’s concerns, reducing the total units from 389 to 378, agreeing to pay $40,000 for a traffic study and $2,000 to restripe a right-turn lane from southbound Fifth Avenue onto Palmetto, and eliminating proposed parallel parking spaces along East Boca Raton Road.
Archstone will also employ “reasonable efforts to limit the aesthetic impact” of satellite TV dishes.
“The proposed new conditions that we just recited make the project even better in terms of its relationship to the adjacent neighborhood,” Brown said.
In addition, in three years Archstone will pay for a traffic signal if increased traffic warrants it.
The variances Archstone requested — to have balconies 13½ feet from the right-of-way instead of 20 feet and to provide 686 parking spaces instead of 816 — are “actually going to make the project much more livable, much more attractive, much more appealing to the eye,” CRA Chairman Constance Scott said.
Neighbors continued to worry about traffic the block-and-a-half long project will bring.
“Staff does not believe a study of the intersection of Palmetto Park Road and Northeast Fifth Avenue is necessary,” Brown said. “The traffic study for the Archstone project was reviewed and approved by city staff and is compliant with [Downtown Development of Regional Impact] regulations.”
Archstone Palmetto Park will be one building that appears to be three towers, with 13,448 square feet of retail on the ground floor (9,058 of it for restaurants). Amenities would include a pool, clubroom, fitness room and large landscaped internal courtyard.
The number of townhomes and flats on East Boca Raton Road was reduced from 36 to 25.
The CRA was able to approve the project only after members, sitting Feb. 14 as the City Council, passed an ordinance expanding Boca Raton’s 2008 Interim Design Guidelines onto the city’s 1992 Development Order regulating downtown development.
The interim guidelines excluded the East Palmetto Park Road corridor; the new ordinance included the corridor but only on parcels of at least 4 acres and without an increase in height, no change in setbacks, and no change in parking structures. That allowed Archstone to design an “articulated” building instead of a flat-front structure.
Scott said previous downtown projects Palmetto Place, Royal Palm Place, Mizner Court, Mizner Grand, Mizner Tower, 1000 Ocean and Presidential Place “all met with tremendous opposition and fear” and “have all turned out to be wonderful additions to our community.”
An overflow crowd at the CRA meeting was not allowed to speak before the 4-1 vote; Scott said she had closed the time for public comments in the Feb. 13 session. CRA Vice Chairman Anthony Majhess, a founder of the Golden Triangle Neighborhood Association, cast the no vote.
Opponent Kathleen Kennedy collected signatures on a petition seeking to overturn the CRA’s decision to extend the interim guidelines to the project. She said she faces a March 14 deadline.
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