Related: Downtown plan’s fate is up to voters, mayor says
By Mary Hladky
Boca Raton voters will decide in the March 10 city election whether to approve a $175 million bond issue to finance construction of a new police headquarters.
City Council members unanimously voted to place the matter on the ballot at their Sept. 22 meeting.
The new headquarters, on 19 city-owned acres adjacent to the Spanish River Library, would replace the antiquated one that now sits across Northwest Second Avenue from City Hall, near Palmetto Park Road.
That facility, built in 1986, is in poor condition and has reached capacity to store evidence and equipment.
At 35,000 square feet, it is too small to house the entire department, requiring the city to locate various functions in seven buildings, city officials say.
While the building is now located in the city’s 30-acre downtown campus, officials say the proposed relocation of the headquarters is unrelated to the city’s effort to redevelop the property through a public-private partnership with Terra and Frisbie Group.
Rather, planning for a new headquarters started long ago and officials decided about two years ago to build it by the library at the intersection of Spanish River and Broken Sound boulevards.
The current headquarters is on 4.4 acres, which officials say is not enough land to accommodate bringing in all of the police operations or to allow for future growth.
Further, the new location takes into account that most of the city’s population growth has taken place in the western parts of the city and thus is more centralized than if it continued to be in the downtown.
And since the city already owns the land, it need not spend money acquiring a new site.
City officials are promising residents that the new location will not reduce police services or response times in the downtown. Plans call for a police substation to be located in the downtown campus.
The estimated cost of the project is $190.2 million. The city is proposing to fund about 8% by using $15.2 million of the balance in the city’s general fund, which now stands at $34.5 million.
The city would fund the rest by issuing $175 million in tax-exempt general obligation bonds for a 30-year term. Deputy City Manager and Chief Financial Officer Jim Zervis told the council that is the cheapest way to finance the project.
Taxpayers, though, would see a property tax increase with an additional tax rate for debt payments of 26 cents per $1,000 of taxable value, or $123.74 a year on a property with a taxable value of $475,000.
As a result, the current tax rate of $3.66 per $1,000 of taxable value would increase to a combined $3.92 per $1,000 rate. But in an effort to avert a public outcry, city officials stress that Boca Raton’s tax rate still would be well below that of other cities.
For example, Fort Lauderdale’s currently is $4.37 per $1,000 of taxable value and West Palm Beach’s is $8.19 per $1,000.
If the project goes forward, construction would start in 2027 and be completed in 2029.
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