News

By Jane Smith

    About 50 Boynton Beach residents gave up five hours on a recent Saturday to brainstorm ideas for the 17-acre Town Center.
    The four-block area, bounded by Boynton Beach Boulevard on the north and Seacrest Boulevard on the west, houses mainly municipal buildings: City Hall, library, high school, police headquarters, a fire station, Kids Kingdom Playground, Schoolhouse Children’s Museum, Civic Center, Stage Left! theater, Arts Center and shuffleboard courts.
    The library, said Dana Little of the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council, “has 300,000 visitors a year. It could act as the anchor tenant for the community center area.”
    Another asset, he said, is its proximity to the beach, a little over a mile away. “That’s a 20-minute walk or a seven-minute bike ride,” said Little, the council’s urban design director.
    The city’s Community Redevelopment Agency paid the council $58,000 for a six-month contract, which included the workshop. Little and his colleagues will take the ideas and develop a plan to show the city commission in July. A more detailed plan would take an additional three to six months, he said.
    Eight council staffers, along with Boynton Beach planning and CRA employees and the city’s mayor and two commissioners attended the Saturday workshop.
    Little also told the residents that the city is hiding its assets behind dense foliage and with building backs facing the streets. The morning of the workshop, some of his colleagues drove around the area, trying to find the entrance to the library where the discussion was held. In addition, the various buildings lack connecting sidewalks, making it not very pedestrian friendly.
    With that in mind, the residents, sitting at six tables, created plans for the municipal core.
    Each team wanted to save the Boynton Beach High School by renovating it and adding the activities of the Arts Center, Civic Center and theater to it. The renovation cost was estimated to be $8 million to $9 million by Little. He suggested that the renovation become part of a bond issue voters could decide.
    One group renamed the Town Center as Coquimbo Square, in honor of the Coquimbo ship that wrecked off Boynton Beach in January 1909. Several storms battered the ship in the next few months, sending lumber onto the shore. That lumber was used to build the Boynton Woman’s Club’s first home on Ocean Avenue and other structures in the city.
    That group expanded on the nautical theme by creating a Maritime Museum with a lighthouse that would be a signature element. The members also proposed moving the city’s original gates, now on the other side of the interstate, to the corner of Seacrest Boulevard and Ocean Avenue.
    The next team, presented by Kim Kelly, who co-owns the nearby Hurricane Alley restaurant, proposed having a fountain at the corner of Boynton Beach and Seacrest boulevards with a “Welcome to Boynton Beach” sign. Along Boynton Beach Boulevard, they propose buildings for national tenants, such as Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts, “to save money and cut costs,” she said.
    The team’s other highlights included adding a water feature and lighting to the Kids Kingdom Playground and building a four-story City Hall with the police headquarters on the fourth floor.
    Presenter Barbara Ready also proposed moving the CRA from Federal Highway to the area, next to a new Arts Center. She ended by saying her team didn’t come up with a fancy name for the area, as the previous team. The residents chuckled.
    Another team proposed putting in a Trader Joe’s grocery store along Boynton Beach Boulevard to draw visitors to the area.
    Susan Oyer of the historic Oyer family presented for yet another group. For the new City Hall, her team recommended reusing the city’s last remaining 1960s-era facade from the Civic Center and creating a pavilion with sail shading on the west side of the high school as a permanent home for the city’s green market. Her group wants to keep the tree canopy and create identifiable meeting places near fountains with low benches.
    The current City Hall should be replaced with mixed-use buildings for family-oriented businesses. “They should be rented,” Oyer said, “because, if not, you will never get it back.” The reference, she said after the workshop, dates back to the 1920s, when Boynton Beach and Ocean Ridge were one community and Ocean Ridge split off in the ’30s.  
    Boynton Beach can make its challenges into opportunities, according to Little. “Ten to 15 years ago in Delray Beach, people got together to create a spending plan,” he said. “You have to think of creative ways to finance your plans.”