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By the time it’s completed, the project would bring massive changes to the 30-acre downtown government campus. Renderings provided

By Mary Hladky

Weeks after the Boca Raton City Council approved an interim master plan that will bring residential, retail and office to 30 city-owned acres, a group of residents is taking action to force the city to allow residents to vote on whether the project should proceed or be scrapped.

Save Boca is circulating two petitions that call for amendments to a city ordinance and to the City Charter, both of which call for an election. But organizer Jon Pearlman prefers the charter amendment, which he said would be the quicker and better way.

Both require petitions to be signed by a certain number of residents, with the charter change needing 6,112 signatures, he said. Petitions are being circulated by about 25 people, and are online at SaveBoca.org.

This effort was launched in the last half of June and the petitions were not available until the end of the month.

“The City Council and mayor have continued to push forward this plan at great speed,” Pearlman said. “We are taking control back to the citizens.”

Residents, particularly those who use city recreational facilities on the downtown government campus — such as the tennis center and skate park — have pressed the council for months not to move them off the campus to make way for redevelopment.

But this is the first time a group has emerged that wants the matter settled by an election.

“We have gotten a great response from a lot of citizens who are eager to protect our public land,” said Pearlman, a Realtor and co-founder — with his wife — of the Mission Lean fitness app. “It is gaining a lot of momentum.”

The proposed ordinance and charter changes both would not allow the City Council to lease or sell any city-owned land greater than one-half acre without going to voters in a referendum election.

The interim plan has three tennis court options: one with two courts, another with five, and the ’Maximum Tennis Facilities’ option, shown here, with six clay courts and two hard courts. 

At the same time, the City Council is moving ahead quickly with its plans to redevelop the downtown campus through a public-private partnership with Terra and Frisbie Group.

When they approved the interim master plan on June 10, council members took pains to characterize it as setting only basic project parameters.

The plan will continue to change over the summer before a final master plan is up for a vote on Oct. 28, Deputy City Manager Andy Lukasik said before the council voted 4-1 to approve the interim plan, with only Council member Andy Thomson — a 2026 mayoral candidate — dissenting.

Lone council dissenter
Thomson once again outlined concerns that he has shared with fellow council members and city staff for months.

He agrees the city badly needs a new City Hall, Community Center and other city buildings, but rejects the proposal put forward by Terra/Frisbie.

Even though Terra/Frisbie has responded to residents’ concerns by reducing the project’s density and increasing the amount of green space, Thomson said it remains too dense.

The project, he said, is being pushed forward too quickly. “It is too much, too fast,” Thomson said.

Too many existing recreational facilities will be moved out of the downtown land to parks and the project will generate too much traffic, he said. Beyond that, he said that he has a host of questions that have not been answered.

While Thomson has not said he opposes a public-private partnership, he questioned how this one is being structured, saying the city will pay for the construction of government buildings upfront and will only recoup the money years later.

“This is 30 acres of public land,” he said. “That makes it all the more important we do it the right way.”

Changes have been made
Deputy Mayor Fran Nachlas, also a 2026 mayoral candidate, disagreed with Thomson, saying that Terra/Frisbie has listened to council and residents’ comments and demonstrated flexibility by making changes.

The developers have eliminated 217 residential units, reducing the total to 912, by eliminating one apartment building and several townhomes. Instead, they plan to build a second office building, bringing the project’s total office space to 350,000 square feet.

They also have boosted recreational space by 23%, which will be spread out over nearly 9 acres of the site, and have presented options to keep more recreation facilities downtown.

“I just don’t understand where all this is coming from,” Nachlas said of Thomson’s critique.

In downplaying the significance of the interim master plan, Lukasik said it only sets forth the size of new government buildings and the square footage of other project components.

Much still must be finalized.

City buildings
The council has agreed with staff that the new City Hall should be about 30,000 square feet, or roughly half the size of the current building. It would house City Council offices, as well as those of the city manager, city attorney, city clerk and a flexible-use council chambers that could be used for other functions.

A building that could accommodate all city departments would have required 131,000 square feet. The city has not yet decided where employees not in the new City Hall will be located.

The Community Center also will be 30,000 square feet, or about three times the size of the current one, and will include recreation facilities. A 10,000-square-foot police substation will be on site. A new police headquarters will be built on city-owned land east of the Spanish River Library.

Retail space will total 77,000 square feet; food and beverage, 75,000 square feet; and a 150-room hotel, 94,000 square feet.

The city has also accepted Terra/Frisbie’s revisions for residential units and office space.

As at previous meetings, some residents spoke out against the project.

Patricia Dervishi, who now is part of Save Boca, said council members always side with developers.

“Today is the day it stops,” she said at the June 10 council meeting. “We are going to get organized. We will elect new city officials.”

Resident Alexandra Abelow agreed.

“We need you guys to come down to earth,” Abelow said. “You are destroying the most beautiful city. We the people are against it.”