News

By Steve Plunkett

    Tower One Fifty Five will be built downtown with fewer but larger condo units.

    The nine-story condominium, first approved in January, will have 192 units instead of 209, with small condos giving way to larger ones. The revised building plan, approved by the Community Redevelopment Agency on Nov. 25, calls for two studio units instead of seven and 10 three-bedroom units instead of two.

    Two-bedroom units drop from 89 to 77, while one-bedroom condos decrease from 105 to 97. The number of town homes stayed the same at six.

    Project architect Derek Vander Ploeg said market research convinced developer Jim Comparato that the mix of units should be altered.

    “It’s the sum and total of a lot of little things that have a tendency to add up for a better project,” Vander Ploeg said. “To make sure that a king-size bed fits in every master and so forth, it got a little bit bigger. So that you had something greater than a 24-cubic-foot refrigerator so you get a 28 or bigger, that all the two-bedrooms have side-by-side washer-dryer units as opposed to stacks.”

    Vander Ploeg’s revised plans add at least 67 square feet to studio apartments, 56 square feet to one-bedroom units, 146 to the two-bedrooms and 98 to the three-bedrooms, “to make the units more livable, obviously,” he said. 

    “It isn’t very often that we have someone come in and ask for less apartments,” CRA Chairwoman Constance Scott said. “I want to commend Mr. Comparato for recognizing that making larger units and less of them would meet the needs and obviously satisfy our population that will be looking at purchasing those.”

    Tower One Fifty Five will go on 1.25 acres at the northwest corner of Mizner Boulevard and East Boca Raton Road. Professional offices at 133, 155, 169 and 199 E. Boca Raton Road will be demolished.

    “After we did the market study we did a second market study and we even did a third to make sure the first two were correct. We were very careful in our layout to make sure that the mix was right,” Comparato said.  

    The project, with a maximum height not to exceed 100 feet, is estimated to generate $430,932 in annual tax increment revenue.