It’s not an election year, but in parts of Boca Raton, it sure looks like it.
From Palm Beach Farms to downtown, scores of green yard signs read “Save Boca.”
The signs represent widespread opposition to a plan to redevelop Boca Raton’s government campus, a 30-acre area that includes City Hall, police headquarters, a community center, the main library, recreational facilities and some commercial properties.
Yard signs such as this one in the Boca Raton Square neighborhood can be found throughout the city, expressing support for a proposal to severely curtail the city’s ability to sell or lease public land to private developers. (Dan Sweeney/South Florida Sun Sentinel)
A plan approved by the city from among several proposals by private builders includes a larger city hall, community center, plazas and parks with bigger and better police and recreational facilities moved to new areas.
It sounds good — but it also includes a 150-room hotel and almost 1,000 apartments in a crowded downtown where residents have had enough development.
Boca has grown cautiously compared to its larger urban neighbors, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. Of the plans developers offered, the Boca Raton City Council chose a joint venture by Miami’s Terra Development and Palm Beach’s Frisbie Group.
It’s smaller and less intrusive than the massive office park envisioned by competitor Related Ross. And since initial approval, developers have agreed to remove three residential buildings, lowering total residential space from 1,129 apartments to 912. But it’s still larger than the city’s signature project, Mizner Park.
“We’ve worked really hard to incorporate the vast majority of the feedback we’ve received, and I’m really proud of where we are,” said Rob Frisbie of the Frisbie Group in announcing the new plan in May. “I think that we now have a plan that is truly exceptional.”
Not so fast
The community doesn’t see it that way. A grassroots organization called Save Boca launched petition drives to put an ordinance and a city charter amendment on the ballot to require voter approval for sale or lease of any parcel of public land larger than half an acre.
That’s an extreme response to development pressures. But Save Boca’s tireless founder, Jon Pearlman, clearly has faith in people. He believes, as he told the Sun Sentinel, that voters can be counted on to approve future land uses that are in the public interest.
But public land giveaways and a widespread NIMBY attitude have become so caustic that any future attempt by Boca Raton to lease even derelict public property might be defeated at the polls if Save Boca’s measures pass.
Save Boca says it has turned in enough signatures to get the ordinance on the ballot (subject to a city council vote). And it is quite close to the 6,112 signatures needed for the charter amendment, which, if passed, would put the half-acre language in the charter regardless of what the council thinks. A date for an election on these measures has not been set.
Here we go again
Citizen revulsion over the private exploitation of public space has been growing.
On Hollywood beach, Fort Lauderdale and elsewhere, public-private partnerships leading to the lease of public land for private use have exploded in popularity, even as outraged residents watch the disappearance of green space.
This Editorial Board has warned against such partnerships before, most notably in Fort Lauderdale at Bahia Mar and One Stop Shop. Boca’s plan is different. The new campus would undeniably offer public benefits such as a new city hall and larger community center. But it includes for-profit private residential development on public land, and many people have lost patience with that.
At the same time, Save Boca’s solution would handcuff future city leaders in ways no one can yet foresee. It’s a sledgehammer solution for a problem that needs a scalpel.
For the good of Boca’s future, city leaders should acknowledge that their plans are not in keeping with the basic tenets of representative democracy.
Rethink this plan again
They represent the people, and the people strongly oppose this development. If the Boca Raton City Council has to go back to the drawing board, so be it — even if it requires a bond issue the way public development used to be carried out before Florida started this fire sale of public land.
Option B: The Terra-Frisbie group will have to entirely rethink its plan, envisioning more green space and less housing.
In a weekend email to residents, Mayor Scott Singer assured the public that the current plans are not set in stone, that it’s OK if the process takes more time, and that a final plan will be “decided at the ballot.”
Those are welcome assurances, because moving forward with the current plan for the government campus will almost certainly result in passage of Save Boca’s restrictions, which will produce expensive lawsuits against the city and prevent future councils from acting nimbly.
There must be a better way.
The Boca Raton City Council will next discuss plans for the government campus and take public comment at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 9, at the city’s facilities building, 6500 Congress Avenue.
The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman, and Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/2025/09/08/to-save-boca-retool-city-development-plans-editorial/
