Plans for the Boca Raton Innovation Campus at the former IBM site, west of Interstate 95 on the south side of Yamato Road, include 1,240 residential units, an entertainment venue, a hotel, grocery and more. Rendering provided
By Mary Hladky
CP Group’s ambitious plan to create a $1 billion live-work-play development that would attract major technology and life sciences companies to its Boca Raton Innovation Campus got a significant boost on Oct. 11 when the City Council approved zoning code changes that allow the company to re-envision the 124-acre site.
CP Group acquired the former IBM headquarters in 2018, rechristened it as BRIC, and has since spent about $100 million upgrading the iconic 1.7 million-square-foot building to meet current corporate expectations.
Now it wants to add 1,240 residential units, an entertainment venue, retail and restaurants, a hotel, grocery and more — uses that are not now allowed — to enhance BRIC’s appeal to companies and their employees who want live and recreate near where they work.
For the past two years, CP Group’s managing partner, Angelo Bianco, and his team have pressed city officials to move quickly so that Boca Raton does not lose out to other Florida cities that also are luring companies that are fleeing high-tax states.
“Tech companies are on the move now,” CP Group’s attorney Bonnie Miskel told the City Council in 2021. “I want to provide you with a sense of urgency.”
Bianco reinforced that point when speaking to the city’s Planning and Zoning Board in May.
“I know we need this for the future of Boca Raton,” he said. “If we don’t, we will continue to fall behind. It is an arms race in a sense, and we are losing.”
After a flurry of last-minute negotiations last month, the City Council unanimously approved a new kind of development called “enhanced mobility” that allows what BRIC wants to build, as well as fitness centers, bars and nightclubs, business and medical offices, child and adult care centers, museums, conference centers and schools.
Properties eligible for development as an EMD must be at least 100 acres. Residential density will be limited to a maximum of 10 units per acre and building height to 85 feet.
An EMD must be located within one-half mile of the Tri-Rail station that is south of Yamato Road and immediately east of BRIC. EMDs are to be designed to encourage the use of mass transit and bicycles so people living and working in one can largely forgo driving cars.
“This is an opportunity to create a real mixed-use district and take advantage of what is a landmark and milestone (IBM) building and still the largest single office building in all of South Florida,” Mayor Scott Singer said after the vote to create the EMD.
He also noted that BRIC now will be better able to attract new corporate tenants, while also offering retail and services to people who live near BRIC.
Council members Yvette Drucker and Fran Nachlas were pleased that the project will provide the city with additional housing. Asked by Nachlas if he would consider adding affordable housing units, Bianco nodded yes.
“It will allow us to change BRIC from an office-only project to a mixed-use project which is what you need to do today to add value to office space, as well as residential and retail,” Bianco said after the meeting.
While approval of the EMD is a milestone for CP Group, its development plans still need to go through the city approval process. That will begin with the group’s submission of a development master plan.
CP Group has already shown the City Council and Planning and Zoning Board renderings of the project, but those are conceptual plans. If the master plan is approved, Bianco said his team will complete the actual project design and will determine the sequence of the project’s phases.
If all goes smoothly, Bianco said construction would start in 2025.
The conceptual plans show the new buildings clustered around the existing office building. A “Main Street” with retail stores would be located on the north side of the site, south of Yamato Road.
The entertainment venue could be similar to Hard Rock Live in Hollywood. CP Group has said it would not compete with the Center for Arts and Innovation that is planned for Mizner Park.
CP Group’s plans for BRIC echo the Midtown development it proposed near the Town Center mall, an equally ambitious $1 billion live-work-play project that would have been located next to a new Tri-Rail station.
The City Council torpedoed that office, retail and residential development, prompting CP Group to file three ultimately unsuccessful lawsuits against the city. But the company quickly moved on, acquiring the IBM headquarters for about $179 million.
In another matter also intended to boost economic development in the employment-heavy section of the city that includes BRIC, the City Council unanimously approved changes for the Park at Broken Sound, formerly known as the Arvida Park of Commerce, which is north of BRIC.
Park at Broken Sound landowners have pushed for a zoning code change that would remove existing restrictions to the type of office uses allowed.
A much wider range of offices, including medical offices, will now be permitted. The change will create incentives for the construction of new office buildings or the expansion of existing buildings.
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