Zoning board approves townhome project in Boca Raton business park

The Boca Raton Planning & Zoning Board recommended approval of a 90-unit rental townhome development in a business park.

The planning and zoning board recommended Thursday night that the city council approve the proposed APOC Townhouses development in the Park at Broken Sound, formerly known as the Arvida Park of Commerce, where three apartment developments are now under construction.

The townhome developer, Delray Beach-based NCC Development, plans to build a dozen three-story residential buildings and a three-story clubhouse. The 90 planned townhomes include 69 with two bedrooms and 21 with three bedrooms. Monthly rents for the townhomes would range from $1,700 to $2,800.

“It’s a product that’s not in the park right now,” the townhome project architect, Juan Caycedo of RLC Architects in Boca Raton, told the planning and zoning board at the Thursday night meeting. “Your choice today is apartments, apartments and more apartments.”

Six of the 12 planned residential buildings would have covered parking structures, and the rest would have driveways and single-car garages. The 12 residential buildings would feature six different building designs.

The townhome project’s “dynamic design was inspired by the predominately contemporary architecture within the [former] Arvida Park of Commerce as well as the ‘millennial’ work force the project is intended to serve,” according to a city staff report prepared for the planning and zoning board.

The townhome project’s location in the Park at Broken Sound is a 4.96-acre site at 950 Broken Sound Parkway Northwest. The existing zoning for the property is light industrial research park and the designated land use is “planned mobility,” a land-use classification the city created in 2012 to allow residential and retail development in the 700-acre Park at Broken Sound.

If approved by the city council, the townhome project will be the fourth residential development located within the Park at Broken Sound.  The first apartments will open there before the end of 2016.

A trio of current developments — Allure, Altis and 850 Boca — ultimately will put a total of 1,050 rental apartments in the Park at Broken Sound. Developers Jamie Danburg, Sergio Rok and Jimmy Tate are building the 282-unit Allure project, Boca Raton-based Altman Companies is developing the 398-unit Altis project, and CC Residential, a partnership of Armando Codina and Jim Carr, is behind the 370-unit 850 Boca development.

The planning and zoning board recommended approval of the townhome development with several modifications, including changes related to sidewalks, planted buffer zones for sidewalks and pedestrian walkways near parking structures.

On May 10, the Boca Raton Community Appearance Board recommended approval of the townhome project contingent on the developer’s response to recommended modifications. These include enhanced hedge landscaping along Northwest Broken Sound Boulevard, larger trees on internal roads that match the scale of the 12 proposed residential buildings, and a tree layout that won’t conflict with utilities.