News

By Dan Moffett

    After more than a decade on life support, the end appears near for the last commercial district in Ocean Ridge.
    The Town Commission has rejected an amendment that essentially would have grandfathered the five-store strip at 5011 N. Ocean Blvd. into compliance with the town’s code and allowed it to stay in business.
    Town Manager Ken Schenck said the reprieves appear to have run out for the Sivitilli family, owners of the 55-year-old building since 1982.
    “If nothing else happens,” Schenck said, “then obviously they’re going to have to close down the businesses on the lower floor.”
    The town has not set a timetable for the businesses to shut down, however, leaving the three remaining shops at 5011 in an uneasy limbo.
    “I don’t know what we’re going to do,” said Christian Riera, owner of the Transition Area triathlon shop who lives upstairs. “We just have to see what happens.”
    Commissioners said they were expecting a detailed plan for the property’s renovation from Lisa Sivitilli, daughter of the owners, Orlando and Lilianne Sivitilli. But what they got during the Aug. 11 meeting was a one-page architect’s rendering of a proposed facelift for the building. It wasn’t nearly enough.
    “This is not what I thought you’d bring,” Mayor Geoffrey Pugh told Lisa Sivitilli. “You’re not giving us information that we clearly asked you for over and over again. What you’ve brought us is so inadequate it’s hard to put words to it.”
    Pugh said the commission wanted to see drawings from all sides to assess the building’s impact on its surroundings. He said the town was tired of excuses and extensions.
    Sivitilli told Pugh it was impossible to present a more detailed plan until the commission ruled on the building’s fate and the family understood better what the town wanted. She said the architect, Randall Stofft, and the planning consultant, Marty Minor of Urban Design Kilday Studios, were well-known to commissioners and could be trusted to handle the mixed-use project.
    Stofft isn’t “some fly-by-night guy,” she said. “You know how good his work is.” Stofft has designed waterfront homes and mixed-use projects in many South Florida communities.
    “We’re not asking to put the Taj Mahal there,” Sivitilli said. “We’re not trying to do anything that’s going to change the character of the town.”
    Commissioner James Bonfiglio, former chairman of the Planning and Zoning Commission and a vocal critic of the Sivitillis, said he came to the meeting with an open mind but said there was “no way he could justify changing town policy for over 50 years” after seeing the one-page plan.
    In one hand, Bonfiglio held up the architect’s drawing. In the other, he held up a thick stack of court papers from the two lawsuits the Sivitillis had filed against the town — and lost — over the property.
    “Here’s what I got that says I shouldn’t change the policy,” Bonfiglio said of the court documents. “Here’s what I got that says I should,” he said of the drawing. “Look at the weight of the stuff that says we should not change the policy.”
    Bonfiglio said he calculated that the Sivitillis’ two lawsuits, in 1997 and 2000, and multiple filings in circuit and appeals courts, had cost the town more than $42,000 to defend. He said the family knew what the town wanted 10 years ago and has done nothing to comply.
    “We have nothing in the record that says you will follow through with your agreements,” Bonfiglio said.
    “Every time I come before the commission or go before planning and zoning, you seem to have already formed an opinion about the case,” Sivitilli said, challenging Bonfiglio’s assertion that he viewed the matter with an open mind.
    The commission voted 4-0 to reject the amendment, with Commissioner Gail Adams Aaskov, who owns a real estate business in the 5011 building, abstaining. The vote effectively puts the Sivitillis in violation of the town’s code and comprehensive plan. The town could decide to levy fines or move to shut the building down virtually at any time.
    Lino Marmorato, owner of Colby’s Barber Shop, the strip’s other remaining tenant, was vacationing in Italy when the decision came down.
    Before moving across the street into a county enclave in July, The Coastal Star also had its office in the building.
    Ocean Ridge has a history of saying traumatic good-byes to businesses. In 1992, Busch’s Seafood Restaurant, a landmark eatery that had fed locals and celebrities alike near the corner of Highway A1A and Woolbright Road for a half-century, closed after losing a lawsuit against the town’s ban on commercial enterprises.
    Commissioner Richard Lucibella said the commission looked for a way to work with the Sivitillis but couldn’t find one. “This is such a heartbreak for those of us who know you, who know your family, who want to help you. The deck has not been stacked against you,” Lucibella said. “But we’re just out of time now.”