David Martin and the Frisbie Group’s massive One Boca project will head to voters on March 10 after years of community backlash and wrangling at city hall.
Martin’s Miami-based Terra company and Palm Beach-based Frisbie won approval from the Boca Raton City Council this week, leaving their 1.1-million-square-foot mixed use project and public land lease to the fate of a voter referendum.
The referendum is required to finalize a master planned partnership agreement between the city and developers, which includes a 99-year lease for 7.8-acres of city-owned land between West Palmetto Park Road, Northwest First Avenue, Northwest Second Avenue, the city’s library and Brightline’s Boca Raton Station.
If voters approve it, One Boca will consist of 947 residential units, 180 hotel rooms, 120,000 square feet of office, a 30,000-square-foot grocery store and 2,100 parking spaces under current plans, though those dimensions could be subject to change.
The pending agreement allows for the possibility of Terra and Frisbie to improve the adjacent 17-acre Memorial Park and build a new city hall and community center for Boca Raton.
One Boca still has plenty of critics. Save Boca, a grassroots organization, clamored for a referendum for any new city land deals.
Council Member Andy Thomson, the lone dissenting vote, said One Boca is still too large and may end up costing the city more in revenue than it would receive from any future rent proceeds outlined in the proposed lease.
The council’s four other members said One Boca will be as much of an economic boon for the city as Mizner Park, a shopping district with condos and apartments that replaced Boca Mall in 1991.
One hundred and eighty two of the residential units would be condos, built on a 12,000-square-foot parcel at 141 Northwest Fourth Street that Terra and Frisbie are contracted to buy from Boca Color Graphics.
The rest will be 688 market rate apartments and 77 workforce apartments slated to be built near the Boca Raton Police Department, after a new police headquarters is built in the city’s Spanish River area.
The ground lease has an estimated value of $228 million, based on based on property taxes, revenue sharing, fees and percentage rents the city would charge the developers. CBRE and PFM have estimated that could amount to $4.5 billion to $5.5 billion over the 99-year term when adjusting for inflation.
The developers committed to contributing $46 million to new utilities and road improvements.
Terra and Frisbie would receive a 3.3 percent fee from the city to build $201 million in capital improvements, including the city hall, community center and Memorial Park improvements, plus a police substation and a $30 million, 600-space parking garage near the site of a future grocery and office development by the Brightline station.
Final designs haven’t been presented, and each element will require city approval.
Council members will vote next month on plan amendments that allow intensive mixed-use transit-oriented development in Boca Raton’s downtown.
Terra and Frisbie beat three other development teams last February, including Related Ross, for the right to redevelop 30-acres of city-owned land, including Memorial Park.
Its initial proposal, designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox, was about 2.5 million square feet with nearly 1,130 apartments, 150 hotel rooms, 157,000 square feet of retail and just over 3,400 parking spaces.
Later iterations were scaled back, but the project still stirred backlash and inspired organizers to collect thousands of signatures to push for the requirement of a public vote prior to selling or leasing city parcels larger than half an acre. That move was ultimately blocked by a judge from appearing on a ballot in January.
Nevertheless, Frisbie and city officials agreed to allow voters to have the final say on One Boca in a public referendum on March 10, the same day voters pick their city’s next mayor and council members.