News

By Mary Hladky

    Three months after its downtown design consultant gave up the job, Boca Raton has hired a new, interim consultant to help oversee downtown development projects.
    Fort Lauderdale-based Calvin Giordano & Associates was brought on board in February and is being paid nearly $50,000 for about six months of work. The city wants a permanent arrangement and will soon seek proposals.
    The move comes after many downtown residents expressed deep dissatisfaction with the work done by the previous consultant, Urban Design Associates, which was hired to improve the appearance of downtown projects.
    It developed interim design guidelines that allowed developers to build as tall as 160 feet downtown provided their plans included pedestrian-oriented streets, public spaces, landscaping, building setbacks and a varied skyline.
    The Mark at CityScape, a mixed-use development near the corner of Federal Highway and Palmetto Park Road, served as a test case for how well those guidelines worked.
    Many residents said The Mark flunked that test, describing it as bulky and unappealing. They also worried that projects now coming out of the ground that used the interim guidelines, including the mixed-use Via Mizner at the corner of East Camino Real and Federal Highway, would be similarly flawed.
    Pittsburgh-based UDA signaled it was ready to pull out in early November when it recommended the city hire an architectural consultant. UDA’s contract ended Nov. 22.
    CGA has a limited mission. It will review only new development proposals that would be taller than the 120-foot height limit in much of downtown, using software to do its analysis that the city does not have.
    John Gore, president of BocaBeautiful.org, described the hiring of CGA as a “good move.”
    “It is ridiculous that once the plans for a building like The Mark are approved, nobody pays attention to make sure the developer builds what he promised,” he said.
    Ann Witte, the group’s vice president, agreed UDA needed to be replaced. But she questioned whether an out-of-town consultant could provide adequate oversight.
    “You need to have someone on staff doing the checking,” she said.
    Mayor Susan Haynie and Deputy Mayor Robert Weinroth in November suggested hiring a city architect rather than hiring a consultant. But council member Michael Mullaugh disagreed, saying he was concerned about the cost of hiring staff for a full-time city architect.
    CGA, which offers services such as engineering, land planning and landscape architecture, also is conducting a traffic study aimed at ending traffic tie-ups at Palmetto Park Road and Northeast/Southeast Fifth Avenue.