By Rich Pollack
Palm Beach County is quickly moving forward with the development of Milani Park, filing permit applications and a massive compliance package with the town of Highland Beach in mid-April.
Once the permits are approved, the construction phase of the long-proposed park straddling State Road A1A at the south end of Highland Beach could begin, and county leaders say that could be as early as June.
Construction, according to Palm Beach County Parks and Recreation Director Jennifer Cirillo, could take about 18 months, meaning work on the park could be completed by fall 2027.
Town Manager Marshall Labadie said the paperwork the county sent to Highland Beach includes documentation demonstrating how the county has complied with a 2010 settlement agreement.
The agreement listed 43 points, including that the county ensures a lifeguard was on the beach portion of the 5.6-acre park and that bathroom facilities were available.
Labadie said documents sent to the town included required approvals from several agencies, including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the South Florida Water Management District.
The package also contained reports from archeologists who studied the historical value of portions of the property, which native Americans and Japanese farmers used.
“There were a lot of documents, several thousand pages,” Labadie said. “The compliance package is very comprehensive, very detailed and very complete.”
Labadie said the town is in the process of looking over the building permit applications the county submitted and is hoping to have that process completed within the next few weeks.
He said it could take a little longer than usual because of the complexity of the project and because it is a unique project in the town, which has no other parks or public recreational facilities.
Beaches in Highland Beach are all private and there is no public beach access.
In addition to permit applications for construction of the bathroom facilities, the lifeguard station and gatehouse for a parking attendant on the west side, the applications include work to connect needed water and sewer lines to the park parcel.
The permits will also cover any fill that needs to be added to the west side of the park, which will be used primarily for 46 parking spaces.
The construction of Milani Park, which has an estimated price tag of $8.6 million, will likely put an end to more than 30 years of uncertainty that began when the county purchased the property from the Milani family in 1987 for $3.9 million.
Since then, Highland Beach and many of its residents have fought to prevent development of the park.
In a compromise aimed at addressing concerns of residents, the county late last year agreed to install just 46 parking spaces in the park’s first phase of construction rather than 100 spaces required under the settlement agreement.
The remaining 54 spaces would be part of a second phase that’s left up in the air to a time to be determined by the county.
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