Save Boca battles unfavorable court ruling
The latest Terra and Frisbie Group plan for Boca Raton’s downtown campus has office, hotel, multifamily and commercial buildings (1-7) on 7.8 acres east of Northwest Second Avenue, with park and government space to the west. Rendering provided
By Mary Hladky
Terra and Frisbie Group, which plan to develop a 7.8-acre section of the city’s downtown campus, have unveiled new details about what they envision.
Boca Raton voters will decide whether the downtown campus project can go forward in the March 10 city election.
But the city and Terra/Frisbie are moving quickly to finalize a master partnership agreement and the 99-year lease of city land to the developers so that the project can move ahead quickly if voters give their approval.
Final City Council votes on both matters are expected on Jan. 20 in what will be pivotal decisions.
Though it now seems an unlikely outcome, a council majority vote against the partnership agreement and lease would kill the project unless the council takes some other action.
It would also nullify the March 10 ballot question that allows voters to cast up or down votes on the downtown campus redevelopment plan.
Yet it probably would be too late for the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections to strip the measure from the ballot. In that event, city and election officials would have to explain to voters in advance that the measure no longer is operative.
The project originally was to encompass the entire 31.7-acre downtown campus. But after residents who have banded together as Save Boca strongly opposed that, Terra/Frisbie agreed to leave the nearly 17.3 acres west of Northwest Second Avenue as recreation and park space along with a new City Hall and Community Center.
The developers confined the land they would lease to 7.8 acres on the east side of the street. Nearly 6.7 other acres on that side are part of the campus and will not be leased. They will remain under city control.
Latest design
Presenting their conceptual plans on Dec. 15, Terra/Frisbie said they plan seven buildings and a parking garage on the site.
They include a 120,000-square-foot office building and a 30,000-square-foot grocery store on a parcel immediately west of the Brightline station and east of the Downtown Library.Below that, a 180-room hotel would front Northwest Second Avenue.
Four residential buildings would be built south of the hotel with a total of 765 rental units.
A condo building with 182 units would be located east of the hotel.
The maximum height for the office building is proposed to be nine stories, while the other buildings can be up to 12 stories.
City officials have not yet provided a location for the parking garage but have said it will have about 1,900 parking spaces.
The city will own the garage but will share it with private users. It will include public parking.
The buildings will include restaurant and retail, generally on the ground floor.
A pedestrian promenade will run through the property from the Downtown Library to West Palmetto Park Road.
Council members did not offer their opinions on the plans, with several saying they needed time to digest what they had seen.
City’s proposed ordinance
In another matter related to the development project, Mayor Scott Singer has proposed an ordinance that would set procedures for when the city wants to sell or lease any city-owned land greater than one-half acre.
The ordinance is Singer’s answer to Save Boca supporters who insist that city residents be able to vote before the city leases or sells any city-owned land greater than one-half acre.
To enable that, Save Boca wanted changes to a city ordinance and the city charter so that a vote by the public is required.
The measures were aimed against the City Council’s plans to lease downtown campus land to Terra/Frisbie.
Voters were going to have their say on the ordinance and charter changes in a special Jan. 13 election. But Palm Beach County Circuit Judge G. Joseph Curley ruled on Dec. 1 that both be stricken from the ballot because one was unconstitutional and the other required a vote before Jan. 13.
Singer’s ordinance would require two public hearings before a sale or lease is approved.
Before each hearing, the city would have to mail a notice to all property owners within 500 feet of the city-owned land and post a notice on the land so that residents know what is happening.
Council members will consider the ordinance this month.
But Save Boca founder Jon Pearlman already has panned the idea, saying it is “a political maneuver by Mr. Singer.”
“It is a fake Boca law,” he said at the council’s Dec. 16 meeting, that still allows the council, and not voters, to decide whether land can be sold or leased.
Save Boca fight continues
Pearlman has not given up on the ordinance and charter changes.
The litigation has not ended between him and retired Boca Raton attorney Ned Kimmelman — who argued that the wording of the two changes is misleading, confusing and violates Florida law.
Pearlman now is seeking to have Curley’s Dec. 1 order vacated. He also wants the proposed ordinance and charter changes to go before city voters at a regularly scheduled election.
Kimmelman had dismissed Save Boca and Pearlman as defendants in his lawsuit in November, which prevented them from defending the two changes in court.
So Pearlman is also seeking to be returned as a party to the case. Curley ordered on Dec. 23 that the two sides schedule a hearing on that matter.
“The case is still ongoing, and we are actively fighting it,” Pearlman told the council on Dec. 15. “We are very confident that we will ultimately prevail and that these Save Boca laws will go before the voters, who will then have the opportunity to enact them into law.”
The legal sparring has grown increasingly heated over the past month.
In a court pleading, Kimmelman contends that Pearlman and his supporters began collecting voter signatures to place the two changes on the ballot before registering as a political committee, a violation of state law.
As a result, the signatures are invalid and the two changes cannot be voted on, the pleading states.
For his part, Pearlman has accused Kimmelman of “judge shopping” in order to get a favorable ruling from another judge.
That prompted Kimmelman to send Pearlman a letter, saying Pearlman “defamed” him. Kimmelman told him to “cease and desist publishing these falsehoods immediately or I will sue you for compensatory and punitive damages.”
If Pearlman prevails in the litigation, it might have no effect on the Terra/Frisbie project since no new election can be held before the one already scheduled for March 10 when voters are now expected to have a say.
But it would impact future land leases or sales, and city officials say holding elections for them would be cumbersome and costly and delay routine transactions that voters most likely would approve.
Project clears P&Z hurdle
The city completed a procedural step toward moving the project forward on Dec. 18 when the Planning and Zoning Board voted unanimously to recommend that the City Council lease the 7.8 acres to Terra/Frisbie.
But the board’s review was limited in scope. Members were not tasked with evaluating the project, but only to say whether the lease is “advisable” from a planning perspective.
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