demolition - News - The Coastal Star2024-03-29T12:07:47Zhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/demolitionBoca Raton: Developer razes 1920s house downtownhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/boca-raton-developer-razes-1920s-house-downtown2022-03-30T14:53:54.000Z2022-03-30T14:53:54.000ZMary Kate Leminghttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/MaryKateLeming769<div><p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}10249038658,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}10249038658,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="10249038658?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a><em>No offers came to move the Cramer House, which was built in 1925, about one block east of the present-day Sanborn Square. <strong>Photo provided by the Boca Raton Historical Society</strong></em></p>
<p><strong>By Mary Hladky</strong></p>
<p>With no one coming forward to save it, the historic Cramer House has been demolished to make way for a large development in the heart of downtown.<br />“I am in mourning,” said Susan Gillis, curator for the Boca Raton Historical Society.<br />The bright blue house’s fate was sealed on March 11 when a contractor working for developer Compson Associates smashed a large hole in the building’s second story after the city issued a demolition permit.</p>
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<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}10249041080,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}10249041080,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="10249041080?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a><em>Demolition of the Cramer House began March 11. The developer is seeking approval for a trio of high-rises, including a 12-story luxury apartment building. <strong>Photo provided by Alan Neibauer</strong></em></p>
<p><br />The demise of the Mediterranean Revival house at 136 E. Boca Raton Road removes one of the last markers of the downtown’s history.<br />Realtor Harley Gates and his wife, Harriette, came to Boca Raton from Vermont in 1913 and built a house called the Palmetto Park Plantation, now the site of Wildflower Park, according to historical society records.<br />Gates then built a spec house on Boca Raton Road in the mid-1920s. Soon afterward, builder Jack Cramer, who constructed the original Town Hall, bought the house and added a two-story section.<br />After World War II, it was the home of Philip Azzolina, who had served in the band at the Boca Raton Army Air Field and was the original conductor of the Boca Pops Orchestra.<br />By the 1970s, the house had ceased to be a residence. It was occupied by a series of businesses over the years, including an art supply store and a gallery. In more recent times, it was vacant and had fallen into disrepair.<br />In the 1940s and 1950s, East Boca Raton Road was the city’s beating heart where everyone went to shop. <br />Those glory days ended in 1983 when Sanborn Square was expanded and the road’s intersection with Federal Highway was eliminated, making it a less convenient destination for shoppers.<br />Federal Highway emerged as the new “Main Street” and East Palmetto Park Road served as a hub for businesses of all kinds and as a major artery to the beach.<br />For now, the site of the Cramer House and a small two-story building behind it that also was taken down will sit vacant as Compson Associates seeks city approval for The Aletto at Sanborn Square. <br />The proposed project would include three buildings on 1.3 acres immediately to the east of Sanborn Square, between East Palmetto Park Road and East Boca Raton Road. If the project is approved, more buildings around the Cramer House would be demolished.<br />A 93-unit luxury apartment tower would rise to 12 stories, the maximum allowed in the downtown. A seven-story office and retail building would feature a restaurant with rooftop dining. An eight-story fully automated parking garage would provide 350 parking spaces and a rooftop pool.<br />Compson developed the 12-story Tower 155 luxury condominium at 155 E. Boca Raton Road, just north of the proposed project.<br />The historical society hoped someone would step forward to pay to move the Cramer House to a new location or that the developer would incorporate the house in plans for The Aletto at Sanborn Square.<br />But Carl Klepper, Compson’s vice president, said no one approached him about keeping the house as part of his company’s project or offered to move the house.<br />He would not have opposed moving it, he said before the Cramer House was demolished. But Klepper doubted it could have been done.<br />“I am just not sure it is very practical,” he said. “I am not certain that could be achieved. (The house) is really in disrepair.”<br />The Aletto at Sanborn Square is at the beginning stage of the city’s process for project approval. If Compson gets the go-ahead from the city, the land where the Cramer House sat will be used as a staging area for the project, he said.<br />Among those joining Gillis in mourning the loss of the Cramer House is City Council member Yvette Drucker, a former historical society president and member of the city’s Historic Preservation Board.<br />“I wish someone would have saved the house. We haven’t had any takers,” she said. “It is sad to see a piece of history go away.”<br />She urged people interested in preserving the city’s history to step in quickly when a historic structure is threatened.<br />“We need to be more proactive with our historical sites,” she said.<br />The Cramer House did not have a historic designation. But even if it did, that would not guarantee it could have avoided the wrecking ball, Gillis said.<br />The historical society has no role in historic designation, she said. That responsibility rests with the city’s Historic Preservation Board.<br />Either the owner of a historic property or the preservation board can submit an application for a historic designation, Gillis said.<br />If the preservation board gives its approval, the decision also must be approved by the Planning and Zoning Board and the City Council.<br />An owner of a designated property must get a certificate of appropriateness from the preservation board before making any changes to the building’s exterior. That is intended to protect the building, Gillis said.<br />The preservation board could deny a demolition permit, but Gillis said that has never happened. Short of that, a waiting period is put into effect so that the owner can avoid demolition by relocating the building or finding a new owner willing to protect it, she said.<br />“It would be better if we could be more proactive,” Gillis said. “But we need more help” from residents concerned about saving local history. </p></div>Delray Beach: Historic home reconstruction puts city at odds with ownerhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/delray-beach-historic-home-reconstruction-puts-city-at-odds-with-2021-04-28T15:51:42.000Z2021-04-28T15:51:42.000ZMary Kate Leminghttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/MaryKateLeming769<div><p><strong><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}8862424074,RESIZE_1200x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}8862424074,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="8862424074?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a></strong><strong>By Jane Smith</strong></p>
<p>When barrier island homeowner Michael Marco next appears before the Delray Beach Historic Preservation Board, he will have to convince the members that demolition — followed by reconstruction — is allowed on his historic house at 212 Seabreeze Ave. <br /> After a four-hour-plus special magistrate hearing on Feb. 24, Marco was cited for failing to obtain a demolition permit. The magistrate said he would wait to determine the amount of the fine until after Marco appears again before the preservation board.<br />On April 27, the city confirmed that Marco is paying $10,000 for a fast-track review of his plans for the house. The money covers the review by an outside architect and city administrative costs. This process is available to any homeowner or developer, said city spokeswoman Gina Carter. All that remains of the historic Sewell C. Biggs house is the steel skeleton. <br /> The 1955 house was designed by Paul Rudolph, the father of the Sarasota School of Architecture style who later became dean of the Yale School of Architecture. Biggs was the house’s original owner and commissioned Rudolph to design it.<br /> The city’s chief building officer shut down the job site on Aug. 5 because more than 25% of the house had been removed. Marco was cited on Sept. 20 for failing to obtain a demolition permit. He contested the citation, sending a decision to the special magistrate.<br /> By the time of the special magistrate hearing in February, tensions were high between the city staff and Marco’s team.<br /> “The actions are irreversible and irreparable,” Michelle Hoyland, the city’s preservation planner, said at the hearing. She found out about the destruction in early August when talking with another applicant, not from a phone call or email from Marco or his contractor. <br /> The city’s hired expert, architect Richard J. Heisenbottle, agreed. “The construction drawings did not show the demolition plans, just showed the proposed plans,” he said at the Feb. 24 hearing. “No one can wave a magic wand and make the original home in the earlier photograph reappear.”<br /> Heisenbottle, of Coral Gables, has been hired by the city in the past on preservation matters and is heading the restoration work on the historic Seaboard Air Line train station. <br /> Delray Beach paid Heisenbottle $10,000 to review all documents about the Biggs house since its local historic designation in June 2005. Heisenbottle said the Rudolph-designed house could continue to be listed on the city’s register of historic places if the contractor followed the U.S. Secretary of the Interior’s guidelines for reconstructing historic buildings.<br /> “It would be appropriate for the board to review the property’s individual listing on the Local Register of Historic Places following the reconstruction — if approved,” Carter wrote in an email to The Coastal Star. “This would give the board an opportunity to review the completed project to ensure it was executed according to plan.”<br /> Others, though, say it cannot remain because too much of the original design has been removed. Doing so would set a precedent for owners of other historic homes. <br /> John Miller, who has chaired the Historic Preservation Board in two separate stints, said, “Technically, they can go to the board and ask for retroactive approval. I don’t think they will get it.”<br /> Miller, a Delray native, is president of the city Historical Society board. His great-grandfather and grandfather were Delray Beach mayors. <br /> He does not see how the Rudolph-designed house can stay on the city’s register of historic places. “It’s a replica, not the original,” Miller said.<br /> That’s also the reason that Kelly Barrette, vice president of the Delray Beach Preservation Trust, does not think the house can stay on the local register.<br /> “It’s not really preservation. It’s just an homage to the architect,” said Barrette, who lives near the house and walks by it daily with her dog.<br /> For Kelvin Dickinson, the chief executive of the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation in New York, reconstructing the house to meet today’s building codes and hoping to call it a Rudolph design is wrong. <br /> New homeowners would be assuming they know how Rudolph would react to today’s construction issues. That’s not possible, Dickinson said.<br /> For that reason, the foundation’s website states: “The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation will not support such a rebuilding as an authentic Rudolph design. … The original residence will remain ‘demolished’ in our project list.”<br />Marco, though, sees it as a “fundamental philosophical difference with purists who want to restore a home to a museum where no one lives. No one wants to live in a structure that is not up to code and unsafe.” <br /> In an April 14 telephone interview, Marco insisted the reconstruction is justified for his historic home, as Heisenbottle, the city’s expert architect, said at the Feb. 24 hearing. <br /> If the Rudolph house stays on the local register, Marco can get property tax abatements on the improvement costs for 10 years.<br /> His plans called for restoring the entrance on Vista Del Mar Drive, and he received Historic Preservation Board approval to add a 5-foot-deep swimming pool in front of the house. He also demolished the non-historic additions, designed by the late Delray Beach architect Bob Currie.<br /> Rudolph designed the house as a two-story structure with an open living space on the ground floor. Marco wants to enclose that ground-level space in glass. <br /> The second floor was not air-conditioned, relying on glass panels and louvers to allow breezes to cool the interior. <br /> Marco’s contractor removed the old glass and louvers as part of the demolition. “That is 100% of the Seabreeze side and 80% of the Vista Del Mar side,” Marco said.<br /> The east and west sides had tongue and groove wood siding that was completely rotted, Marco said. The siding had to be discarded. <br /> Soon after paying $1.4 million for the Rudolph house in February 2018, Marco wanted to change it. In July 2018, he went before the Historic Preservation Board and said there was no need for a demolition plan. But on an Aug. 27 site visit last year, Heisenbottle found the steel frame and the second-floor framing as the only features being preserved and restored. Everything else is being replicated.<br />The proposed work should have been done to preserve and restore the original defining characteristics of the house, according to Heisenbottle’s Sept. 15 letter to the city.<br /> Marco came to the Feb. 24 special magistrate hearing with his attorney, Michael Weiner, and his expert architect, Roger Cope. They all said the construction plans submitted to the city indicated what they intended to do with the historic Rudolph house. <br /> “My client informed the city and the board through his plans that he was removing four sides,” Weiner said. “When you carry out the plans for a Rudolph house, this is what happens.”<br /> In mid-April, Marco said, “The city calls it a demolition. I call it reconstruction.” </p></div>Away it goes City Hall, Boynton Beach — Nov. 26https://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/away-it-goes-city-hall-boynton-beach-nov-262018-11-28T18:04:35.000Z2018-11-28T18:04:35.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960834459,original{{/staticFileLink}}" target="_blank"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960834459,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" alt="7960834459?profile=original" /></a><em>Piles of scrap steel and aluminum lie in the parking lot that used to serve the Boynton Beach City Hall and police station. Open since 1958, the City Hall was the last public building to be razed to make way for the Town Square redevelopment project. On the first day of its demolition, the city held a watch party Nov. 15 at the historic Schoolhouse Children’s Museum. Town Square, a public-private partnership, will create a downtown for Boynton Beach with new civic buildings: combination library and City Hall in a 4-story building, Fire Station No. 1, amphitheater and parking garages. The estimated completion dates are in late 2019. The historic high school, which sits next to the Children’s Museum, is undergoing renovation that will enable it to host events on the top floor that can seat up to 500 and recreation classes on the bottom floor. The city’s share of Town Square will cost about $118 million. Demolition began in September when the Civic Center was bulldozed. <strong>Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star</strong></em></p></div>Boynton Beach: Construction means city will light tree in Dewey Park for Christmashttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/boynton-beach-construction-means-city-will-light-tree-in-dewey-pa2018-10-31T16:17:55.000Z2018-10-31T16:17:55.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960824657,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img width="600" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960824657,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" alt="7960824657?profile=original" /></a><em>The Boynton Beach Civic Center, library and surrounding buildings were demolished in October. City Hall, police headquarters and other areas north of Ocean Avenue are scheduled to be torn down this month. <strong>Courtesy city of Boynton Beach</strong></em></p>
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<p><strong>By Jane Smith</strong></p>
<p>About a month into the Town Square project that will create a downtown for Boynton Beach, “everything is on track,” said Colin Groff, assistant city manager in charge of the project.<br /> In October, the Civic Center, Art Center, City Library and Madsen Center buildings were demolished to make way for the 16-acre project. The area is under development by a public-private partnership among the city, its Community Redevelopment Agency and the development team of E2L Real Estate Solutions.<br /> On the south side of Ocean Avenue, the new downtown will include a City Center that combines City Hall and the library, an amphitheater, a play area and a garage. The buildings should be finished in early 2020.<br /> On the north side of Ocean Avenue, the existing City Hall, police headquarters and Fire Station 1 are slated to be torn down in November. The north side will have a district energy plant and a new Fire Station 1, along with a privately built hotel, retail space, offices, restaurants, apartments and a garage.<br /> In past years, the city’s holiday tree lighting occurred in front of the Schoolhouse Children’s Museum, just east of City Hall. Because of the ongoing construction, that location is not suitable for the tree lighting ceremony because public parking is not available.<br /> Instead, Boynton Beach Mayor Steven Grant suggested using the banyan tree in Dewey Park as the city’s “Christmas tree.” The park is three blocks east and out of the construction zone.<br /> At the city’s October CRA meeting, board member Justin Katz joked, “It’s imperative that if an article is written about this that it says: Jewish mayor saves Christmas.”<br /> The CRA board unanimously agreed to spend up to $25,000 to light up the banyan tree and the surrounding area after the city’s holiday parade on Dec. 1. The parade starts at 4 p.m. The banyan tree will be lit nightly through early January.<br /> The CRA received three bids with costs ranging from $5,000 to $20,000 for the banyan tree lighting. Last year, the holiday tree lighting cost $36,000 to light up the artificial tree near the Children’s Museum.</p></div>Business Spotlight: Two Boca companies among the country’s fastest-growinghttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/business-spotlight-two-boca-companies-among-the-country-s-fastest2018-10-03T14:46:35.000Z2018-10-03T14:46:35.000ZMary Kate Leminghttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/MaryKateLeming769<div><p class="p1"><strong><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960822872,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img width="750" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960822872,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" alt="7960822872?profile=original" /></a></strong></p>
<p class="p1" style="text-align:center;"><em>Boynton Beach officials and others gathered for the tearing-down of the old Civic Center, at 128 E. Ocean Ave. City employees moved in August to temporary space. After the city hall at 100 E. Boynton Beach Blvd. is demolished, the site will be cleared for construction of Town Square, which will include a city hall, hotel, 705 apartments and two parking garages. Construction is expected to finish by the end of 2020 at an estimated cost of $250 million to the partnership between the city and E2L Real Estate Solutions. The city’s public meetings are now at the Intracoastal Park clubhouse, 2240 N. Federal Highway. <b>Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star</b></em></p>
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<p class="p1"><strong>By Christine Davis</strong></p>
<p class="p1">Several companies in South Palm Beach County ranked on the annual Inc. 5000 list of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies, with two in Boca Raton placing within the top 200.</p>
<p class="p3">With sales that jumped 4,547 percent in three years to $11.3 million, <b>reCommerce</b>, 1515 N. Federal Highway, a company that partners with brands to optimize their presence on Amazon, placed 62nd nationally. <b>Alturna-Tech</b>, 2300 Glades Road, Suite 302E, an IT management company, ranked 129th. Its revenue rose 3,082 percent in three years to $10.3 million.</p>
<p class="p3">The annual Inc. 5000 event honoring the companies on the list will be held in mid-October in San Antonio.</p>
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<p class="p3">The National Association for the Self-Employed announced that a Delray Beach small business, <b>Mayhem T-Shirt Printing</b>, was awarded a $4,000 Growth Grant to help expand its business operations. Mayhem T-Shirt Printing, owned by Rose Jean, is a custom T-shirt printing website. </p>
<p class="p3">“Mayhem T-Shirt Printing was chosen for this Growth Grant award because of its demonstration of a well-defined plan for growth, ranging from executing new marketing initiatives, purchasing new equipment or other creative ways to grow and expand,” said John Hearrell, the association’s vice president of membership and affiliate programs. </p>
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<p class="p3">Members of the <b>Boynton Business Professionals Leads Group</b> recently met at the Banana Boat in Boynton Beach for a business social event. Two leads groups within the Boynton Beach Chamber of Commerce meet twice a month. The goal is to give members a chance to develop referral networks.</p>
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<p class="p3">The Festival Management Group of Delray Beach recently named <b>Patrizia Sceppa</b> its 2019 South Florida Garlic Fest poster artist. Out of Garlic Fest’s 20 years, Sceppa has been the poster artist eight times. She is the creative director for her company, Patrizia Sceppa Inc.</p>
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<p class="p3">According to the J.D. Power 2018 North America Airport Satisfaction Study, North American airports have managed through record passenger volumes and massive construction projects to achieve a record high in overall passenger satisfaction.</p>
<p class="p3">The study noted improvements in five factors — check-in; food, beverage and retail; accessibility; terminal facilities; and baggage claim — that helped drive overall passenger satisfaction 12 points higher than last year’s study. <b>Palm Beach International Airport</b> ranked 13th among medium airports in the report. Buffalo Niagara International Airport ranked highest among the medium airports.</p>
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<p class="p3">Art historian and curator Elliot Bostwick Davis has been appointed director and CEO of the <b>Norton Museum of Art</b> to succeed Hope Alswang, who is retiring March 1.</p>
<p class="p3">Davis comes to the Norton from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She’ll join the Norton soon after the Feb. 9 opening of its 59,000-square-foot expansion and new sculpture gardens designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Lord Norman Foster of Foster + Partners.</p>
<p class="p3">The new wing and expanded museum includes new galleries, classrooms and auditorium.</p>
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<p class="p3"><b>Evelyn & Arthur</b> stores will close Nov. 6 to raise awareness and to encourage voting in the midterm elections. “We believe voting is not just a constitutional right but also an important civic responsibility,” said Adrianne Weissman, president of Evelyn & Arthur. “As history has shown, everyone has the power to make a difference, and now, more than ever, this is important to stand up for what we believe in, whatever that may be.”</p>
<p class="p3">When stores reopen Nov. 7, shoppers who provide proof they voted, either with a photo taken outside the polls or by presenting their voting sticker, will get 20 percent off one item.</p>
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<p class="p3"><b>Lang Realty</b> launched Lang TV, a streaming lifestyle real estate channel, on Sept. 17. It features South Florida agents, real estate, lifestyle activities, interior design, travel and country club living. </p>
<p class="p3">The network kicked off with three shows from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Sunday. Each week, a new show or segment will broadcast starting each Monday. The lineup includes: <i>Showcase of Homes</i> with host Olivia Hollaus; <i>Luxury Living at The Oaks</i> with Lisa Hindin and Brian Bahn; and <i>Luxury Living at DelAire Country Club</i> with Jim Pappas and Paul Bidva. Lang TV can be viewed across all smart TVs, Roku, Apple TV and from any internet connection by logging onto <a href="">www.langrealty.tv. </a>;</p>
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<p class="p3">Overall sales of single-family homes in Palm Beach County realized a 1.7 percent year-over-year increase for August, and sales of homes priced over $1 million increased by 12.9 percent, according to market reports.</p>
<p class="p3">The median sales price had no change at $340,000.</p>
<p class="p3">“We have had a stable market month over month with moderate variances in year-over-year data for single-family homes in Palm Beach County,” said Jeffrey Levine, president-elect of the <b>Realtors of the Palm Beaches and Greater Fort Lauderdale</b>. “What is notable is the 5.4 percent year-over-year rise in the median sale price of condos and townhomes to $185,000. This is simply because there is very little inventory in that price range for single-family homes.”</p>
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<p class="p3">An 8,431-square-foot home built in 2017 at <b>1400 Royal Palm Way</b> <b>in Boca Raton</b>, which was listed for $13.75 million, sold for $11.25 million to 1400 Royal Palm Land Trust LLC. The listing agent was Chad Gray of Coldwell Banker, and representing the buyer was Marie Mangouta of Douglas Elliman Real Estate.</p>
<p class="p3">According to Douglas Elliman, this is the third Royal Palm Yacht & Country Club home that sold this year for more than $10 million, and this sale marks the second-most expensive home sold in that community. Highest sale this year was for 312 E. Coconut Palm Road, which sold for $11.6 million in January.</p>
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<p class="p3">A home at <b>6017 Old Ocean Blvd. in Ocean Ridge</b>, once the site of fundraising events for Republican presidential candidates, including the late U.S. Sen. John McCain, is on the market for $7,999,999. The events occurred when Lothar and Carlyn Mayer owned the home and played hosts.</p>
<p class="p3">Its current owner, Yves Moquin, has listed the property with Val Coz and Jeff Wilson, agents with Douglas Elliman Real Estate. The British West Indies-style house has 13,376 square feet of living space with ocean views from all major rooms.</p>
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<p class="p3">On Sept. 4, <b>Mason Slaine</b> sold his unit at 1000 South Ocean in Boca Raton for $5.475 million to <b>Diane Portnoy</b>. Slaine is chairman of FT Media Holdings, based in Greensboro, N.C. He is also a director and investor in RS Energy Holdings, Reorg Research, Efront Holdings and Certara LLC. Portnoy is the CEO and founder of the Immigrant Learning Center, near Boston.</p>
<p class="p3">The four-bedroom, 41/2-bath condo was first listed for $6.1 million by Douglas Elliman Real Estate agent Senada Adzem. Slaine bought the condo in June 2014 for $5.725 million. In 2016, Slaine bought a five-bedroom home at 850 Lake Drive in Boca Raton for $11.5 million, according to property records.</p>
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<p class="p3">Unit 901 South at <b>Mizner Grand</b>, a condominium development at 500 SE Fifth Ave., Boca Raton, sold in September for $4.65 million. The new owners, Julia and Roberto Cascella, bought the unit from William, Catherine and Rita Rappaport.</p>
<p class="p3">“It was the highest resale in the building for a three-bedroom unit,” says Scot Karp, director of the ultraluxury condominium division at Premier Estate Properties, who has been selling units in the building since its preconstruction days. The two-tower, 12-floor development opened in 2001.</p>
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<p class="p3">Palm Beach State College alumnus <b>Robert M. “Skipp” Orr</b>, Ph.D., will start the college’s 2018-19 honors college speaker series with a lecture, “Course Change: Seven U.S. Presidential Elections That Changed History,” at 2 p.m.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span> Oct. 10.</p>
<p class="p3"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960823092,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960823092,original{{/staticFileLink}}" width="99" class="align-left" alt="7960823092?profile=original" /></a>Orr was U.S. ambassador to the Asian Development Bank from 2010 to 2016. He graduated from Atlantic High in Delray Beach and is now a distinguished visiting professor at Florida Atlantic University, where he earned a B.A. in history.</p>
<p class="p3">Orr has been a professor at Stanford and Temple universities and was president of Boeing Japan. He earned his master’s degree in government from Georgetown University and a doctorate in political science from Tokyo University. His book, <i>The Emergence of Japan’s Foreign Aid Power</i>, won the 1991 Ohira Prize for best book on the Asia Pacific region.</p>
<p class="p3">His lecture will be in the Public Safety Conference Center, PSD 108, on the Lake Worth campus, 4200 Congress Ave. The event is free and open to the public. To attend, RSVP at <a href="http://www.palmbeachstate.edu/Honors/SpeakerSeries">www.palmbeachstate.edu/Honors/SpeakerSeries</a>.</p>
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<p class="p3">The <b>League of Women Voters of Palm Beach County</b> invites the public to a Hot Topic Luncheon, “Ballot Choices: Property Exemption and Taxes” with Anne Gannon, Palm Beach County tax collector, and Tim Wilmath, chief appraiser of the Property Appraiser’s Office. Scheduled for 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Oct. 17, the event will be at the Atlantis Country Club, 190 Atlantis Blvd. in Lake Worth.</p>
<p class="p3">The talk will include Amendment 1, which would increase the tax savings for permanent residents but create shortfalls for county and city governments. Amendment 2, which would continue a 10-year cap that helps business owners in the county, also will be discussed. </p>
<p class="p3">Gannon will explain options for paying tax bills, while Wilmath will discuss the pros and cons of each amendment.</p>
<p class="p3">Registration starts at 11 a.m.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span> Tickets are $25 until Oct. 10, and $35 after that date. RSVPs are requested at <a href="http://www.lwvpbc.org">www.lwvpbc.org</a> or 968-4123.</p>
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<p class="p3"><b>Crane’s Beach House Boutique Hotel & Luxury Villas</b> hosted its first Tastings at the Tiki with Chalk Hill Winery, Smith & Hook Winery and Saltwater Brewery in September. The event benefited the Arts Warehouse in Delray Beach.</p>
<p class="p3">Upcoming Tastings at the Tiki include PR Yak-Yak, the 11th annual benefit for the Gold Coast PR Council and PRSA Palm Beach, which will be held on Oct. 18.</p>
<p class="p3">Best Bite for Vets, an annual restaurant competition benefiting Project Holiday and the HOW Foundation of South Florida, will be Nov. 15.</p>
<p class="p3">For information, call 278-1700 or visit <a href="http://www.cranesbeachhouse.com">www.cranesbeachhouse.com</a>.</p>
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<p class="p3">The Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties invites residents to share a meal and discuss ideas to strengthen the community during a localized nationwide movement, <b>On the Table,</b> scheduled for Oct. 24.</p>
<p class="p3">People will participate at homes, restaurants and other venues throughout the day, as well as through social media using #OnTheTableFL. It’s a national initiative funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.</p>
<p class="p3">“On the Table reinforces our commitment to building a more vibrant community by going straight to the source — the people we serve — to understand the issues that matter to them most so we can continue to invest in organizations that impact the community,” Bradley Hurlburt, president and CEO of the foundation, said in a statement. “We’re grateful for the opportunity to bring this initiative to our area and we know that great ideas will come together and inspire even greater grassroots action.”</p>
<p class="p3">The issues and ideas discussed will be driven by the perspectives of the participants. Each table discussion will be led by a host organizer, who is a local volunteer who brings together a table of participants.</p>
<p class="p3">“The most rewarding aspect of On the Table is that it serves as a reminder to every resident in this community that their voice matters, and what they have to say will collectively inspire greater impact,” Daryl Houston, community investment officer at the foundation, said in the statement. “Taking part in this initiative is simple, as these conversations can take place during breakfast, lunch, dinner or even during a coffee break or cocktail hour.”</p>
<p class="p3">Participants will complete a survey, which will be compiled by national research firms to analyze the issues and ideas for community improvement that resulted from the day’s discussions. The Community Foundation will share these outcomes to help determine how best to advance some of the ideas and solutions generated.</p>
<p class="p3">The Community Foundation is one of 10 foundations across the U.S. participating in On the Table, which had a successful pilot in 2017. For information or to sign up to participate as a host or a guest, visit <a href="http://www.onthetablefl.com">www.onthetablefl.com</a>.</p>
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<p class="p3">Downtown Delray Beach will again host <b>“Downtowns Go Pink”</b> on Oct. 25 in support of Susan G. Komen South Florida and National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Pink lights and banners, compliments of the Delray Beach Downtown Development Authority, will adorn Atlantic Avenue and Pineapple Grove. Restaurants and stores will offer discounts and gifts with purchases, with a portion of sales to support Komen’s local breast cancer programs and research.</p>
<p class="p3">For more information, visit <a href="http://www.komensouthflorida.org/downtowns-go-pink%C2%A0or">www.komensouthflorida.org/downtowns-go-pink or</a> email info@komensouthflorida.org.</p>
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<p class="p6"><i>Send business news to Christine Davis at cdavis9797@gmail.com. </i></p></div>Boynton Beach: Civic Center’s last dancehttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/boynton-beach-civic-center-s-last-dance2018-07-04T15:05:51.000Z2018-07-04T15:05:51.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p style="text-align:center;"><span style="font-size:18pt;"><strong>Final social event stirs a half-century of memories</strong></span></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960801094,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img width="600" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960801094,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" alt="7960801094?profile=original" /></a><em>Jean Fletcher and Claude Donawa enjoy a final dance together at the Boynton Beach Civic Center. <strong>Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star</strong></em></p>
<p></p>
<p><strong>By Ron Hayes</strong></p>
<p>Walls go up, and walls come down, and in between lives are lived.<br /> On Tuesday, Sept. 4, 1962, Mayor Thomas A. Summers turned a shovelful of dirt at the corner of East Ocean Avenue and Seacrest Boulevard, and a new, $100,000 Boynton Beach Civic Center was born.<br /> The walls stood strong through 56 years of teen dances and rummage sales, pingpong and pool, Jazzercise and hurricanes, but now they’re about to come down.<br /> On Sept. 3, the city will hand the Civic Center keys to developers, and those old walls will make way for Town Square, a $118 million, 16-acre redevelopment. <br /> And so, for six hours on Saturday afternoon, June 16, some men and women who were young when the center was young gathered there to mourn, remember, dance a last dance — and write on the walls.<br /> <br /><span style="font-size:12pt;"><em><strong>DONNIE & JEANNIE, ’69</strong></em></span><br /> Inside a heart, of course.<br /> Regina Day, 66, was born in Delray Beach, and Don Day, 67, moved there when he was 6. They met at the old Seacrest High School.<br /> “We’d come up from Delray,” Don Day said, as a trio called Three’s Company burned through <em>Great Balls of Fire</em> onstage.<br /> “This was the main dance hangout,” he remembered. “The idea was to pick up the girls in the parking lot so you didn’t have to pay to come in and then take them to the Royal Castle in front of St. Mark’s School on U.S. 1.”<br /> One night, he got in a fender bender on Ocean Avenue. “Took the gray primer off my old Ford Falcon,” he said. “I finally painted it white.”<br /> But his future wife, Regina — known to all as Jeannie — could not be lured to Royal Castle.<br /> “I was the good girl who came in with my cousin and danced,” Jeannie Day said. “We were real dancing machines back then. That’s why last year I had to get new knees.”</p>
<p></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960801262,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img width="500" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960801262,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" alt="7960801262?profile=original" /></a><em>The Civic Center and the library (in background) will both be demolished to make way for the Town Square redevelopment.</em></p>
<p><br /> Cathy Patterson, 67, was one of the organizers who decided the city should host a Last Dance at the Civic Center “so all the kids who used to hang out here could say goodbye.” She also suggested it be from noon to 6 p.m., even though those Saturday dances of the 1960s were at night.<br /> “Nowadays, we all have to get to the early bird at the LongHorn,” she laughed.<br /> Cathy thinks the dances cost 25 cents when she was a girl, but her husband, Jim, says 50 cents, and he should know. Jim Patterson, 72, was the city’s recreation supervisor back then and held the job for 30 years.<br /> “It was 50 cents for Boynton Beach Youth Association members and a dollar for others,” he said.<br /> Memories fade, but both agree they met within these walls.<br /> “He was running the dances,” Cathy said. “I was 16 and he was 21, the adult in the room.”<br /> You could tell Jim Patterson was the adult in the room because he wore a coat and tie.<br /> “We didn’t have that many problems,” he recalled. “I had to watch out for a little bit of drinking, and check the bathroom for smoking. A few kids would get drunk.”<br /> On a good night, he said, the teen dance might draw as many as 300, 400 kids. <br />“But we averaged about 150. We paid $70 or $80 for a band, $90 if they were real good. The big local band was The Avengers.”<br /> Propped on an easel near the door beside a table full of Civic Center scrapbooks, a blown-up, black-and-white photograph from the old Boynton Beach News Journal has captured the five Avengers with their Beatles hair and bellbottoms in February 1969.<br /> The Avengers’ bass player was an 18-year-old boy named Dana Carrier.<br /> Onstage at the last dance, facing that photo from the stage, the bass player for Three’s Company was a 67-year-old man named Dana Carrier.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:12pt;"><em><strong>DANA & LYNN</strong></em></span><br /> <span style="font-size:12pt;"><em><strong>LYNN LOVES DANA</strong></em></span></p>
<p>In a heart, of course.<br /> Lynn Shephard and Dana Carrier met here, too, and married.<br /> “I tried to get the original band back together for this,” he said, “but they’re all over the United States. One’s in California and one in Tennessee, one in South Georgia. I gave them four months’ notice, but …” He shrugged.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960801465,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img width="500" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960801465,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" alt="7960801465?profile=original" /></a><em><strong>ABOVE:</strong> Dana and Lynn Carrier married after meeting at the Civic Center and returned there for the Last Dance.</em> <br /><em><strong>BELOW:</strong> A February 1969 Boynton Beach News Journal clipping shows Dana Carrier and his band, The Avengers, performing at the Civic Center.</em></p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960801486,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img width="400" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960801486,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" alt="7960801486?profile=original" /></a><br /> Carrier had auditioned for The Avengers to replace a departing guitarist, he recalled. The other guys told him he wasn’t good enough to play guitar, but if he wanted to be a bass player, they’d get him a bass and teach him. Garage bands were loose like that back then.<br /> “We used to rehearse in a tin barn down where Bud’s Chicken is now,” he said.<br /> They played the tunes most of today’s teenagers have never heard of, and they will never forget.<br /> “We played a lot of Vanilla Fudge,” he said. “Young Rascals. Good Lovin’ was my big song, and we had a singer who had a voice like Gary Puckett, so we could do Young Girl.”<br /> Meanwhile, Noel Cyr, 67, and his brother Duane, 65, stood against the wall, reminiscing about The Tree.<br /> Something in Noel’s grin, and the way he spoke those two words, let you know The Tree should always be capitalized.<br /> “This was the place to come and meet girls,” he explained, “and The Tree was this big banyan tree out in back. You’d go out there to kiss.”<br /> They pushed through the side door, stepped out into the library parking lot and pointed.<br /> “That’s it, right there,” Noel Cyr said, and sure enough, straight across the lot, beside Southeast First Avenue, a majestic banyan tree still stands with branches low enough to hide a multitude of teenage temptations.<br /> “There’s probably a couple girls here today that I took out to The Tree,” Noel said.<br /> The library wasn’t here back then, it was dark, and there were other trees around, so The Tree was really several trees.<br /> “If you could get the girl outside, any tree was a good tree,” Duane Cyr said.<br /> But of course the good girls wouldn’t venture back here, surely.<br /> “Well,” he drawled, “they were good girls when they came out here, but they might not have been good girls when they went back.”<br /> The Tree has survived, but youth doesn’t, and the teen dances didn’t, either.<br /> “What killed the teen dances was psychedelic music,” Jim Patterson said. “I tried to keep it going. I bought six black lights, but the kids weren’t dancing to that sort of music.”<br /> By the 1970s, he was patrolling preteen dances instead.<br /> “We played bubble-gum music, but we didn’t have a band,” he said. “It was just records.”<br /> And then came Jazzercise classes.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:12pt;"><em><strong>GONNA MISS THIS PLACE 197????</strong></em></span><br /> Monica Roundtree Cleckley, 44, a Boynton native, led her daughters, Maliha, 9, and Kirinyaga, 15, around the hall while she made a smartphone video.<br /> “I went to dances here, and I brought my daughters for ballet and tap classes. It was a hub for things to do on a low-key street. Everybody in the community coming together.”<br /> On Aug. 13-26, the Civic Center will be reopened to accommodate early primary voting, but this last dance would be the last real event.<br /> Teenagers become Medicare recipients, band members move away, memories fade, time flies and walls fall.<br /> The teen dances of the 1960s could draw 400 on a good night, but the Last Dance at the Civic Center never saw more than 60 or 70 that Saturday afternoon.<br /> By 5:55 p.m. when the real last dance came due, there weren’t more than 25 or 30 old-timers lingering. The others had already left, for that early bird at LongHorn, perhaps, or a nap.<br /> In the end, a young group called Bright Colors played a song called <em>Good Times</em>, recorded in 1979 by the rhythm and blues band Chic. Dana Carrier sang along, but only a few people danced.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960800678,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img width="500" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960800678,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" alt="7960800678?profile=original" /></a><em>Historic preservationist and longtime resident Susan Oyer writes a goodbye message to the Boynton Beach Civic Center.</em></p>
<p><span style="font-size:12pt;"><em><strong>GREAT EXAMPLE OF 1960S ARCHITECTURE. WELL LOVED. GOODBYE AND GOD BLESS. SUSAN OYER.</strong></em></span><br /> Oyer, whose great-great-grandfather arrived in Southeast Florida in the early 1870s, stepped back to read what she’d written on the wall.<br /> “Jazzercise in here as a kid,” she said. “Beautiful building — sorry to see it go — ‘progress’ I guess.<br /> “How many buildings can you fight for?”</p></div>Manalapan: Demolition begins for Publix at Plaza del Marhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/manalapan-demolition-begins-for-publix-at-plaza-del-mar2017-06-28T17:00:00.000Z2017-06-28T17:00:00.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p style="text-align:center;"><strong><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960728453,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img width="600" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960728453,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" alt="7960728453?profile=original" /></a></strong><em>Construction crew members plan for the demolition of several buildings in the Plaza del Mar shopping center</em></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em>to make room for construction of a Publix grocery. Businesses in the mall will remain open</em></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em>during the projected year-long process.</em></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><strong>Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star</strong></p>
<p></p>
<p><strong>By Dan Moffett</strong><br /> <br /> Demolition has begun to make way for a Publix supermarket at Manalapan’s Plaza del Mar after the mall’s landlord cleared the last two obstacles to the $10 million renovation project in June.<br /> For one, town commissioners ended seven months of negotiation with Publix and Kitson & Partners over the store’s sign design in finally approving 3-foot white lettering with backlighting for the marquee space above the front entrance.<br /> “We have ourselves a sign,” said a smiling Mayor Keith Waters after com-missioners’ unanimous vote on June 13.<br /> The other obstacle to fall was a civil suit filed in Palm Beach County Circuit Court that sought to block the supermarket’s construction. Lantana resident Barbara Federico and homeowners from Manalapan’s La Coquille Villas had accused town officials of procedural errors and failing to follow their own building rules.<br /> Federico also objected to the size of the supermarket — 25,000 square feet — and its potential negative impact on traffic. La Coquille residents complained the store wasn’t in keeping with Manalapan’s “unique ambiance.” But the plaintiffs decided to withdraw their lawsuit before the case made it to the courtroom, ending a legal fight that could have stalled the project for months.<br /> Matt Buehler, Kitson’s retail vice president, said construction of the Publix, as well as a facelift for the adjoining stores and parking lot, will take about a year to complete. The target date for the supermarket’s opening is June 8, several months later than Kitson and Publix had wanted.<br /> The approved sign design will share similarities with signs across the street at the Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa and will be restricted to the same level of illumination. Two monument signs marking the plaza entrances will not have the words “Food and Pharmacy” as Publix had wanted.<br /> Illumination of the store’s main sign is restricted roughly to business hours from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.<br /> “When the store is closed, we’d like that light to go off,” Waters said.</p></div>South Palm Beach: Remainder of inn to be demolished soonhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/south-palm-beach-remainder-of-inn-to-be-demolished-soon2016-02-04T15:05:49.000Z2016-02-04T15:05:49.000ZChris Felkerhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/ChrisFelker<div><p> South Palm Beach Town Manager Bogdan “Bob” Vitas Jr. said the remainder of the dilapidated Palm Beach Oceanfront Inn should be demolished this month. <br /> Vitas said the Oceanfront Inn property, located across from Town Hall at 3550 S. Ocean Blvd. and owned by Paragon Acquisition Group, should be cleared of debris and “shovel ready” for new development by March 1, the beginning of sea turtle nesting season.<br /> The 1960s-era hotel closed in September 2014. Some of its buildings were demolished in October.<br /><em>— Willie Howard</em><br /><br /></p></div>Boynton Beach: Shaded park will replace old Boynton dive shophttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/boynton-beach-shaded-park-will-replace-old-boynton-dive-sho2015-12-02T20:00:00.000Z2015-12-02T20:00:00.000ZMary Kate Leminghttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/MaryKateLeming769<div><p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960619465,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960619465,original{{/staticFileLink}}" width="704" alt="7960619465?profile=original" /></a><em>The former Splashdown Divers building is reduced to rubble next to the Sea Mist III drift boat at Boynton Harbor Marina. <strong>Photo courtesy of Kim Weiss</strong></em></p>
<p style="text-align:left;"><strong>By Jane Smith</strong><em><strong><br /></strong></em> The old dive shop building at the Boynton Harbor Marina was demolished as the last piece of an $18 million plan to redo the marina area. <br /> Demolition started Nov. 2, and most of the work was done in four days.<br /> The city’s Community Redevelopment Agency board, which controls the marina, received an update on Nov. 10. <br /> “It’s the last piece in tying that area together from a pedestrian and driver point of view,” said Vivian Brooks, CRA executive director. <br /> The project work won’t start until the summer. “We don’t want to interrupt our businesses during the season,” she said. <br /> The building will be replaced with a shaded park for the public with a walking path and seating, roadway realignment, extra parking spaces and other features, estimated to cost $700,000.<br /> The CRA sought county approval in May to demolish the vacant two-story structure. It needed county approval because of a $2 million county grant received in 2006. The agreement limited what could happen to that 1969 building. <br /> The BG Group LLC of Boca Raton won the demolition bid in September with its estimated cost of $24,950. <br /> Now CRA staff will prepare bids for construction of the open space, allowing it to start late spring of 2016.</p></div>Delray Beach: Lawsuit dismissed, Atlantic Crossing construction can beginhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/delray-beach-lawsuit-dismissed-atlantic-crossing-construction-can2015-02-04T20:14:07.000Z2015-02-04T20:14:07.000ZChris Felkerhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/ChrisFelker<div><p><strong>By Tim Pallesen</strong><br /><br /> Construction for Atlantic Crossing starts this month after a lawsuit by neighbors who sought to alter its design was dismissed by a judge on Jan. 20.<br /> “We’re ready to get demolition and construction underway,” said Edwards Companies President Jeff Edwards, the partner with Ocean Ridge resident Carl DeSantis to build the $200 million mixed-use project on East Atlantic Avenue.<br /> “Our group is not giving up,” said Harbour House condo president Bruce Leiner, who still believes the developer should pay the city for the street right-of-way that the city abandoned in 2009.<br /> Neighbors at the Harbour House condo had sued last year to force an access road from Federal Highway to relieve traffic congestion.<br /> But Circuit Judge Jamie Goodman dismissed that lawsuit against Atlantic Crossing and the city without explanation on Jan. 20.<br /> Atlantic Crossing still wants city commissioners to sign a development agreement that specifies what the developer is obligated to do. <br /> Commissioners delayed the agreement last October pending the outcome of the lawsuit.<br /> “We’re asking the city to work with us to finalize the development agreement without further delay,” Edwards said.<br /> As incentive, Edwards said that the $500,000 the developer pledged for improvements to city-owned Veterans Park immediately east of the project hinges on whether the agreement is signed.<br /> But demolition of two vacant buildings on Atlantic Avenue — the former Delray Beach Antique Mall at the Gillis & Sons building and the Rinceaux Jewelry and Antiques building — is scheduled this month with or without the agreement.<br /> Demolition of the Carroll Financial Center at the corner of Northeast Sixth Avenue and Northeast First Street, the final building on the site’s western block, is projected by late April.<br /> Once the western block is cleared, construction will begin on a 440-space underground garage to be beneath apartments slated to open in 2016.<br /> The existing Atlantic Plaza commercial center will remain open on the eastern block until demolition and new construction there is due in 2017-18. <br /> Once completed, the city’s largest mixed-use development will have 356 luxury condos and apartments, 80,000 square feet of restaurants and shops, plus 79,000 square feet of office space.<br /> Atlantic Crossing estimates the project will bring 1,000 construction jobs and 600 permanent jobs to the city.</p></div>Boca Raton: Old motel succumbs to progresshttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/boca-raton-old-motel-succumbs-to-progress2014-01-29T16:25:33.000Z2014-01-29T16:25:33.000ZChris Felkerhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/ChrisFelker<div><p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960489876,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960489876,original{{/staticFileLink}}" width="538" class="align-center" alt="7960489876?profile=original" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><b>Mary Kate Leming/The Coastal Star</b></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"> <em>One of the few remaining small motels in Boca Raton built in the late 1950s has finally succumbed to progress as bulldozers and demolition crews have cleared the site of what had been the Boca Motel and Efficiencies. Located at 910 E. Palmetto Park Road, not far from where the landmark La Vieille Maison restaurant once stood, the motel with many incarnations managed to survive building booms and recessions before demolition started last month. </em><em>Originally opened as the Uncle Dudley Motel and later known as the Wavecrest Apartment Motel, the building was typical of the mid-century motels that dotted South Florida decades ago, said Susan Gillis, curator at the Boca Raton Historical Society. </em></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em> "I’m sorry to see it go because it was a little part of old Boca and it represented one of the last of the mid-century motels still remaining," she said.</em></p></div>Gulf Stream: Neighbors upset with ‘hole in the sky’https://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/gulf-stream-neighbors-upset-with-hole-in-the-sky2012-05-30T18:12:48.000Z2012-05-30T18:12:48.000ZDeborah Hartz-Seeleyhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/DeborahHartzSeeley<div><p><span><b>By Tim O’Meilia</b></span></p>
<p></p>
<p>Six months after a win-win truce was declared in the struggle over the future of a six-acre Gulf Stream estate and the demolition of its 75-year-old mansion, a “hole in the sky” has re-opened the battle.</p>
<p>Neighbors of the soon-to-be built Harbour View Estates begged Gulf Stream town commissioners at their May 11 meeting to intervene to force developer Tom Laudani to replace a towering banyan tree bulldozed in late March to make way for the six-home subdivision.</p>
<p>In an agreement to gain the support of nearby Hidden Harbour Drive residents, Laudani and Seaside Builders promised in late 2011 to maintain a 15-foot landscape buffer around the new subdivision instead of the required 3-foot zone and retain the estate’s luxurious canopy. The town signed a separate subdivision agreement with Seaside that did not include the buffer or canopy.</p>
<p>“I can tell the difference between a canopy and the sky and right now I see a hole in the sky,” Hidden Harbour resident Martin O’Boyle told commissioners. “All I want to do is get the canopy back. Can the town step in?”</p>
<p>The banyan’s 30- or 40-foot span of branches shaded part of the buffer but is not part of it. O’Boyle said Laudani told him the developer did nothing wrong. </p>
<p>“We need to resolve it and we don’t want to sue,” he added.</p>
<p>Resident and lawyer Tom Murphy said the agreement requires that the developer “will maintain the canopy as it is today. Well, that is not as it is today. The banyan was taken down, an historic, huge 40-foot tree,” he said.</p>
<p>Commissioners were sympathetic but did not commit to getting involved in the dispute. Commissioner Muriel Anderson called it “heartbreaking.” Commissioner Garrett Dering wondered what the town could do.</p>
<p>“We feel their concerns and everybody else does, I’m sure,” said Mayor William Koch Jr. </p>
<p>“We are not the Viet Cong here, coming out at night trying to disrupt the developer,” Murphy said. “We want a banyan of equal size and scope to be put back where it was.”</p>
<p>Town Attorney John Randolph said he didn’t think the town could take legal action against Seaside since it wasn’t a party to the contract. He called Seaside later in May to encourage the developer to cooperate with the neighbors but said Laudani believes the banyan was not part of the canopy.</p>
<p>The removal of the banyan reversed the good vibes generated by the developer/neighbor agreement of late last year. Then O’Boyle praised Laudani for preserving “the values of my property, my neighbors’ and my friends.”</p>
<p>Other than the banyan, Town Manager William Thrasher said inspections by him and the town police show that the site has been kept clean of debris and construction noise has been minimal. </p>
<p>He said one tree in the buffer was mistakenly removed and another fell in a storm because of termite damage and resulting trunk decay. The developer will replace them. </p>
<p>The property, locally known as the Spence estate, was designed in the British colonial style by noted Palm Beach architect John Volk and built about 1937 by Seward Webb Jr., a grandson of William Vanderbilt. Webb’s widow sold the estate to typewriter heiress Gladys Underwood James. Eventually it was sold to Edwin and Regina Spence. Mrs. Spence died in December 2010.</p>
<p>At a May 22 special meeting, the commission agreed to change its zoning code to better address subdivisions. If approved by ordinance at later meetings, homes in new subdivisons will be required to be similar in size, shape and character to nearby residences and must submit a landscaping plan to preserve existing vegetation.</p>
<p>No dead-ends or Y- or T-shaped turnaraounds will be allowed. Spence said estate neighbors agreed to a T-shaped turnaround to avoid a street connecting to their neighborhood.</p>
<p><b>In other business</b>, town consulting engineer Danny Brannon said that FPL had finally assigned an engineer to handle the town’s $5 million utility undergrounding project. </p>
<p>The revised schedule anticipates construction on phase 1 south of Golfview Drive will begin in October and be completed by mid-October 2013. Phase 2, north of Golfview, will begin in March 2013 and finish in mid-March 2014. <span>Ú</span></p></div>Boca Raton: Historic bungalow may face bulldozerhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/boca-raton-historic-bungalow2010-12-01T23:30:00.000Z2010-12-01T23:30:00.000ZScott Simmonshttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/ScottSimmons<div><p style="text-align:center;"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960312458,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" /></p>
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<p><strong>By Mary Thurwachter</strong><br /> <br /> Quiet, for a moment, please. Listen carefully and you can hear an SOS coming from the Boca Raton Historical Society. The wrecking ball looms and it’s threatening to take away a slice of the city’s history.<br /> In this case, it’s the Luff House, a unique Boca Raton example of the Florida coral rock-bungalow style. The two-story home at 390 Palmetto Park Road was built in the 1920s by pioneer residents Theodore and Harriet Luff. <br /> The current owners want to sell the property, says Mary Csar, the Boca Raton Historical Society’s executive director. They have offered the house to the Historical Society, but the organization lacks the money to buy it, move it and restore it. <br /> Although it would be eligible for grant funds like those provided in the past by the Florida Bureau of Historic Preservation, those are limited and cannot be counted on, Csar says. <br /> The society is hoping a sensitive buyer will come forward — soon.<br /> <br /> <strong>House with a history</strong><br /> In the 1920s, the Luffs had the house built in a Florida interpretation of the bungalow style, using coral rock on the porches and chimneys. This type of bungalow, once fairly common, is now exceedingly rare in the state and is unique in Boca Raton. <br /> As Palmetto Park Road grew more commercial, the structure was occupied by a several businesses, including Front Porch Antiques, the Boca Watch Shoppe and Carousel Jewelers. <br /> The bungalow was home to community agencies like the Junior Service League and was the first home of the Boca Raton Historical Society. <br /> Arlene Owens, a Boca native born in 1945, says the Luffs were family friends and she recalls visiting the house as a child when they were quite old.<br /> “Everybody knew everybody back then,” Owens says. “There about 600 people living in the town then, although it swelled during the season with northerners would come to stay in the hotel.”<br /> Owens says the Luff’s décor was decidedly manly, “more him than her.” Owens particularly remembers a huge snooker table that took up a whole room.<br /> Theodore Luff, she recalls, was a bright, eccentric man who made his money investing and once gave her dad a stock tip.<br /> “He was a sharp old fellow,” she says. “You never knew what would come out of his mouth.”<br /> <br /> <strong>If the walls could talk</strong><br /> Pioneer Diane Benedetto, born Imogene Alice Gates in 1916, has memories that go back further. She remembers visiting the house when she was a child and being fascinated by the Luffs.<br /> “They were health food people and naturists, and I always liked to ask to use the restroom to look at all the magazines with nude people in them,” Benedetto says. <br /> “They were spiritualists,” she adds. “She (Mrs. Luff) would tell me about all the blue light around me and the spirits. When their dog died they had him stuffed and put him on the mantle.”<br /> Benedetto, who is 94 and lives with her daughter in Miami, also recalls a secret hiding spot in the house.<br /> “If you lifted up a section of the floor in a closet in the back bedroom, you could see a place where they kept valuables,” she says. <br /> <br /> <strong>Steps taken</strong> <br /> In an effort to save the structures, the Historical Society met with public officials and private and civic organizations to discuss the relocation, restoration and possible future uses of the house and researched costs for its relocation. <br /> “This is a community treasure; once gone, it will be gone forever,” says Csar. <br /> To contact the Boca Raton Historical Society regarding the Luff house, call 395-6766, Ext. 106. <br /> Help would be greatly appreciated, Csar says, in preserving this rare historic link with Boca’s past. <br /> <br /> <em>Mary Thurwachter is a West Palm Beach freelance writer and founder/producer of INNsideFlorida.com (<a href="http://www.innsideflorida.com">www.innsideflorida.com</a>).</em></p></div>