The Boca Raton City Council has decided to require a voter referendum before moving forward with a 99-year lease that would allow developers Terra and Frisbie Group to build on public land. The proposed project, located at West Palmetto Park Road and Northwest Second Avenue, includes plans for apartments, condominiums, retail space, offices, and several public improvements.
On Tuesday evening, council members directed the city attorney to include a referendum clause in any future lease agreement. This decision followed comments from numerous residents who called for a special election regarding the development plans by Miami-based Terra and Palm Beach-based Frisbie Group on 30 acres of city-owned property.
The revised proposal calls for 580 apartments, 160 condos, 80,000 square feet of retail space, and 250,000 square feet of office space. It also features a redesigned Memorial Park, new city hall and community center buildings, as well as other upgrades for public use.
Rob Frisbie Jr., managing partner at Frisbie Group, and David Martin, CEO of Terra, said the current design is less dense than their earlier plan. The previous version included 912 residential units, 150 hotel rooms, 350,000 square feet of offices and 152,000 square feet of retail.
Frisbie explained to council members that the project was downsized in response to resident concerns voiced during a recent meeting at city hall. He noted his support for holding a referendum and announced upcoming public workshops with residents scheduled for September 29 at the downtown library and October 6 at Spanish River Library. Both meetings will begin at 4 p.m. Additionally, Frisbie stated his team is open to meeting with local homeowners’ associations and will not push for approval by late October as previously planned.
“We need to get the community behind this project,” Frisbie told council members. “This is a [really] exciting plan and they should get to vote on it.”
The updated plan eliminates the hotel component and reduces both residential units and retail space compared to prior proposals. New features include a tennis center with up to ten clay courts, a playground designed around existing banyan trees on site, a World War II memorial, and a new children’s museum.
However, scaling back the development means lower financial returns for the city in rent and taxes over time. Under the original plan developers estimated payments totaling about $3 billion over the life of the lease; under current plans this figure drops to approximately $2.1 billion. Developers would also receive fees for constructing new municipal facilities but remain committed to providing $10 million toward building a pedestrian bridge near Brightline’s Boca Raton station between government buildings and Mizner Park.
Despite these changes some residents remain opposed. Critics have collected roughly 7,000 signatures supporting an ordinance or charter amendment requiring voter approval before selling or leasing more than half an acre of public land—about 1,000 signatures were gathered during severe storms last weekend according to Jon Pearlman of Save Boca.
“Right now, the land is public. They want to get it into their possession. And once they get it, they will have full control over it for the next 99 years,” Pearlman said.
Some residents argued that city officials should consider renovating or replacing municipal buildings without turning over public land or increasing traffic in ways that could affect Boca Raton’s character as a small town. The current proposal still involves relocating some recreational amenities from Memorial Park—including two softball fields—to other locations within the city.
Earlier this year Terra and Frisbie were selected from among four teams competing for redevelopment rights in Boca Raton’s “government campus” area—a process which originally considered much larger projects including up to 1,129 residential units across approximately 2.5 million square feet.
Terra and Frisbie are also working on redeveloping another major site—the Palm Beach Kennel Club property—with plans calling for up to 1,145 apartments there.
Boca Raton continues attracting significant developer interest: Mill Creek Residential Trust LLC (Mill Creek) together with Group P6 are planning construction of a $101 million apartment complex comprising more than three hundred units in downtown Boca Raton (https://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/news/2024/05/14/mill-creek-group-p6-boca-raton-apartments.html). Local developers James Batmasian and Marta Batmasian recently received support from city planners for two new twelve-story hotel towers near Mizner Park (https://therealdeal.com/miami/palm-beach-county/2024/04/25/batmasians-win-approval-for-two-hotels-in-downtown-boca-raton/).
