I'm sorry. Okay. Okay, let's call this meeting to order. Welcome everyone to this regular meeting of the Boker-Tone Community Redevelopment Agency. It's Monday, August 26, 2024, and the time is 1.30 pm. This meeting is now called to order. Well, everyone, please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice grow. Thank you. Miss Siddons, would you please call the roll? Chair Nackles here. Vice Chair Thompson. Thankful to be here. Commissionerer here commissioner singer here commissioner Wigder here all present. Thank you very much Mr. Brown are there any amendments to the agenda? Yes chair we're proposing to remove item 8a which is resolution 202405 regarding the meeting calendar for the year 2025, so that staff can work a little bit further on the meeting's next October, November and December. Okay, thank you very much. Can I have a motion in a second? So moved. Second. Mr. Singer, Mr. Wigter for the second. All in favor? Hi. Hi. Okay. Thank you. That's all the amendments we propose. Thank you, Mr. Brown. Okay are there any corrections to the minutes of the regular meeting of 722-24? So moved. Second. Okay thank you. An all in favor? Hi. Okay none opposed. Good all right minutes passed. We'll move on to there are no presentations today so we're going to move on to quasi judicial and related public hearings Please note if you're planning to speak during any of the following public hearings Please state your name and address for the record and limit your remarks to three minutes Miss Siddins, could you please read the title of the idea? DDI IDA number CRP 2302 D-D-R-I-I-D-A number CRP-23-0-2. Consideration of an individual development approval, IDA number CRP-23-0-2 of the Booker Tone Community Redevelopment Agency for the 280 East Residential Project generally located on approximately 0.63 acres at East, excuse me, at 280 East Palmetto Park Road, to authorize the development of a nine-story 28-unit approximately 112,249 square foot, multi-family residential building with a maximum height not to exceed 100 feet, with additional architectural features with a maximum total height not to exceed 115 feet, and two levels of below-grade parking totaling 40,474 square feet with 61 parking spaces together with the abandonment of an existing utility easement and including a conversion of uses resulting in approximately 2,726 square feet of office equivalent development remaining in downtown sub area C providing for a peeler providing ineffective date. Thank you very much. Now I'll ask the deputy city attorney Mr. Kailer to review the quasi judicial procedure that will govern the public hearings. Good afternoon Madam Chair, commissioners. The item today, quasi judicial proceeding will be handled in accordance with all applicable laws including the provisions of the rules, the book returns CRA. Each applicant requesting approval relief for other action from the CRA shall disclose at the commencement or continuance of the public hearings. Any consideration provided or committed directly, Ron, it's behalf for an agreement to support or withhold objection to the requested relief or action. Summary of the procedures is attached to the CRA agenda and a copy of the same can be obtained from the city clerk. Thank you very much. Now I'd like to ask the members if they have any ex-parte disclosures. I'll start on my left with Vice Chair Thompson. Thank you Madam Chair. I think it was May 1st. There was an event at the, it's like the sales office for the glass house here where I heard comments made by the applicant and some members of their sales team regarding the merits of this project, Hattward, to be built. But I didn't really have a discussion. They were just kind of directing things publicly outwards and I was in the audience and I was listening. And I believe that concludes my exparte. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Singer. Thank you. Some months ago I was invited to an event. I think a ribbon cutting for this property. I did not attend that, but I did receive that email. And only 10 minutes ago, I was in the audience greeting some people. Among them were John, specifically John Donaldson, who said he was here on this project, as well as Judith Telekay, who said she lives in the area. And that was the extent of our conversations. Thank you, Mr. Rucker. Thank you. A couple months ago we got invited or I got invited to the ribbon cutting for the glass house. I was not in attendance and I have no further expertise. Thank you, Mr. Wigter. Yes, I was also invited to the ribbon cutting but I was not able to attend. And there's no further discussion. Thank you. And I also was invited to the ribbon cutting. I did not attend and no one else has reached out to me about this. So thank you. Now I'll ask anyone who wishes to speak to stand while the clerk administers you. Please raise your right hand. Do you swear a firm that any testimony you may give before this public hearing will be truthful and accurate. Thank you. Mr. Brown, who will make the presentation today? Jacob Garmin, planner with the Development Services Department will make the presentation on item 6A, which is DDII 2302. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair and Board members. My name is Jacob Garmin, planner 2 for the city, and I'll be presenting the 280 East residential project located at 280 East Palm Metal Park Road. The applicant is requesting an IDA for the authorization of the construction of a 9-story 28-unit approximately 112,249 square foot multifamily residential building with the maximum height not to exceed 100 feet with architectural features with the maximum height, total height of 115 feet and two levels of below grade parking totaling 40,474 square feet for a total square footage of 152,723 square feet. With the abandonment of an existing 10 foot wide utility easement and a conversion of uses within downtown Subarrier Sea. The project will redevelop approximately 0.629 acre property located approximately 500 feet east of South East Meister Boulevard, south of East Palma Park Road and west of South East Third Ave and north of East Royal Palm Road. Properly owned DDII with a future land use designation of CBD. The project will demolish and existing 8,665 square foot vacant office building along East Palma Park Road to construct a new nine story 28 unit multi-family residential development. The ground floor of the new multi-family building will consist of a variety of amenity uses for the residents that include a lobby area, Melbourne Fitness Center, Lounge, Steam and Sonner Room, and other support areas. The ground floor is accessible via an internal walkway that is set back and separated from the public sidewalk with landscaping planners and lawn areas. The upper floors will be utilized for private residences, each including three or four units per floor. The project consists of street scape improvements along all property frontages, which include East Palm, Middle Park Road, Southeast Third Ave, and East Royal Palm Road. The project will redevelop East Palm, Middle Park Road to construct a new eight-foot wide sidewalk that will be shifted closer to the building and align with the adjacent sidewalk to the west. Southeast third-aub will be rebuilt. Will we rebuild five of the existing seven on-street parallel parking spaces? Create designated loading space within city right away and construct a new six foot wide sidewalk. And Eastworld Palm Road will be redeveloped to build two new on street parking spaces and construct a new seven foot wide sidewalk. Additionally, new landscaping will be provided that include street trees, shrubs and ground cover along all of these property frontages. Vicular access to the property will be provided via a driveway along southeast third ab near the intersection of southeast third ab and east world on road. Upon entry into the parking structure prior to an access gate there will be three parking spaces located along the southern portion of the building and then 58 additional parking spaces and provided be on the access gate. And the two levels of below-grade parking, 58 of the spaces. Of the 58 spaces, 44 will be provided in 22 car garages that will be available on a first-come, first-served basis to the residents. Each garage will be equipped with an EV charger that residents can install. The remaining six units will utilize the remaining 14 non garage parking spaces within the below grade parking, which are not reserved or assigned to a specific unit. Nonetheless, sufficient parking has been provided for the project. Additionally, a car hand washing station will be provided at the end of level two of the below grade parking structure. And this base will consist of a hose bib and drain where residents can wash their car. This project requires 40% open space or 10,958 square feet of open space. The project is providing 11,346 square feet of open space, of total open space which includes areas open to the sky and covered open space which includes areas open to the sky and covered open space. Shown are the eastern and northern elevations, the northern elevation front's East Pomodopark Road and the eastern elevation front southeast Third Ave. The project offers a more contemporary interpretation of myosinar design elements. It utilizes glass to visually light in the mass of the building including the use of large windows and glass terrace railings. The terraces are a classic element of myzer design. The underside of these terraces are finished in a composite wood to add warmth and further incorporate myzer elements. Additional elements include various stone finishes, aluminum and stucco, stucco portions of the building are painted white. Shown here are the Western and Southern elevations, Southern elevation fronts, ROAPOM road, and the Western elevation of butts, the existing chase bank to the west. The elevations shown showcase the architectural screen that extends from the ground to the second story. The screen is perforated and undulates to provide an interesting shadow effects. The screen breaks in the middle of the Southern facade, meaning one ADA space, is screened by a living landscape barrier rather than the architectural screen. While this living barrier meets the requirements of 4035, our design consultant completes cities, planning group, recommends continuing the screen, the full length of the Southern facade to fully screen all ground floor garage base. This application also includes the abandonment of an existing 10 foot wide, approximately 1762 square foot utility easement that is generally located on the southern portion of the property. The existing easement is L-shaped and runs approximately 87 feet to the west and 88 feet to the north. There is a 7 foot by 16 foot portion of the easement which projects out from the L-shaped near the eastern property line. The existing easement will conflict with the location of the proposed building. There isn't existing water main located within it, which services only the existing building and census easement does not create a loop system. The abandoned easement will not be relocated. However, a new easement for water service and fire service will be requested during the public work review process. During the analysis of this application staff found that the proposed project complies with the DDRI development order. The proposed multifamily residential use is consistent, compatible with the adjacent land uses. The proposed project will convert 8,334 square feet of office to 20 residential units of OE development, which staff supports. And the proposed project will construct a new sidewalk along East Palm Island Park Road, Southeast Theradav, and East Royal Palm Road with street trees. And staff supports the abandonment of the existing 10 foot wide utility easement. This project was reviewed by the CABE for former recommendation on July 16th and was recommended approval and a vote of 4 to 0 and the project was reviewed by the Planning and Zoning Board for recommendation on July 18th and was recommended approval on a vote of 4 to 0. The Development Service Department recommends approval of the individual development on July 18th and was recommended approval on a vote of 4 to 0. The development service department recommends approval of the individual development approval application. The city's urban design consultant complete city's planning group review the project and found it to be consistent with 4035. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Grimman. Does anybody have any questions for staff? Not this time. Madam Chair, actually yes. Thank you Mr. Chairman. You mentioned that during planning works review that additional easement would be requested. There are requirements in the development order that they've got to comply and provide something if we want it, right? I believe so. Regardless that easement will have to be created and it would be created during public or servue. Okay. We do have a condition for the administrative process to create that use as well. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Okay. So now we're going to open the public hearing. The petitioner is invited to speak first. He may have up to 20 minutes. And would the applicant like to make a presentation? Mr. Millage? Good afternoon for the record, David Millage on behalf of the applicant, 14 Southeast, 4th Street, Loker, Town, Florida, 3-3-4-3-2. Good afternoon, everyone. Before you, we are seeking an IDA approval to construct a new residential building of 28 units and a conversion of OEs to dwelling units, as well as an abandonment of a portion of a water easement. As Jacob mentioned, this project is located at 280 East Palm Metal Park. It's a little more than half an acre. It's within sub-area C of the DDRI, has a CBD zoning district and is the home of an existing bank, approximately 8,600 square feet. Our project team, location, this is located on the south side of Palmetto Park Road between, or east of Meiser Boulevard, west of the intercoastal, as you can see on the slide before you. This is a close-up of the subject property. It has two, currently has two entrances, one off of East Palmito Park and one off of Southeast Third Avenue as part of this project. The entrance off of Palmito Park Road would be abandoned or closed, so we would eliminate any conflicts on Palmto Park Road. These are street views of the project. It's a two-story bank, as I mentioned, and it's rear-loaded with parking. So here's our site plan. The main entrance into the garage is Southeast Third Avenue, where we have 61 spaces while only 49 parking spaces are required as well as there's additional on street parking of seven spaces, five of which are on southeast third avenue and two new spaces will be on Royal Palm. On the first per in addition with this application we are relocating the sidewalk on East Palmetto Park Road. We are now creating separation from the travel lane which will be a benefit to the pedestrians as well as this new sidewalk aligns with the existing sidewalk to the west. on the ground floor we have our lobby, gym, yoga studio, lounge. All of these uses really activate the ground floor. On our roof, we continue landscape treatment with a variety of ground cover and palms. We have our pool, our spa. We have two additional water features adjacent to Cabanas as well as we have other covered outdoor space and outdoor seating areas. Going back to landscaping this is a heavily and well landscaped proposal with a variety of different trees, palms, mid-story, and ground cover. And now I'll hand it off to our architect who's going to give you a little description of our architectural inspiration behind the project. Good afternoon. My name is George Garcia, I'm a 25-visit parkway in West Palm Beach. But I live in Boca, so I believe that one of the things that is important to note here is that we feel extremely, extremely fortunate to be challenged and truly challenged by working on a project that I think addresses what we feel should and can be addressed in the future, which is this urban setting. And I know there's a lot of talk about that lately in the city of Booker-Attone. We took this project on knowing that we would be in a way, setting a course for how we can relive the intention of the downtown area and particularly the corridor of Palmetto Park Road. We've seen some hits and misses throughout the downtown area and I believe that what we accomplished here was an example of how we can do that the pedestrian, the parking, the views and truly urban living, I think that it's, this is one of those projects, this is not out in the middle of the suburban areas with views to any golf course, or anything, this is a place to enjoy the place that you're in. And so we did that by making sure that, obviously the features and the proportions and so on are what the code now addresses. I was taking a drive around this Saturday and or Sunday as well to look at projects including from a round of golf at the Bokar Resort and looking at what sort of was then and what is now in terms of what we've been able to achieve with the amount of views and glass and so on. It's not about 40% glass or less or more. I think it's about the proportions of that because today's materials are a lot different and our capabilities are a lot more a lot different than they used to be. So we think it's of today and that it addresses all the items. I think the rendering speak for themselves. We have views from everywhere these units are extremely long and have choices where you are within to enjoy all the potential that your location provides. Any questions? Please. I'm welcome. Thank you. Does anybody have any questions for the petitioner? I will just wrap up real quick. As it relates to traffic, the existing high traffic generating bank will be replaced with only 28 residential units so there is a significant reduction in the traffic which would be generated from this project. And as Jake Mr. German had mentioned we are requesting an abandonment of a 10 foot water easement which conflicts with the pro's building it does have existing infrastructure in it. It does not create a loop system and any infrastructure will be relocated if necessary. And we add to answer Mayor Singers' question relating to the easement. If any easement is necessary, it will be addressed during PWR. And the easement is located there in pink. And if there are any questions, we would be happy to answer. We have our assortment of team members here if there's anything specific. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Millage. Is anybody Mr. Wigdo? Yes, thank you. Thanks very much. Beautiful design. And I'm very, very thankful for the separation of the pedestrian from the road. I think that's an improvement certainly. That could be a future planning initiative for other applicants. With respect to the EV charging, my understanding is that there's a new state statute which preamps the requirement of cities to require EV parking. But I noticed in your initial presentation, I guess you talked about some optionality regarding EV charging. Can you just talk about that a little? You are correct. EV charging is now preempted by the state. We're still proposing to provide the necessary conduit to get to these individual garages, as well as the other Evie charging locations for the site. We think it would be a benefit to the residents so that it's more streamlined and simple for them to install their own EV, charging based off of their vehicles of choice. Right, but essentially, because you're not required to do it. We're not required, but we think it would be a good addition for the residents based off of the high quality of the units that we're proposing. So we think it's going to be a nice addition, although not required. Right, it's a business decision. Correct. Right thank you. Thanks very much. No further questions. Thank you Mr. Wigart. Anyone else? I just have one I think one question maybe two. Mr. Garcia talked about the urban setting and contemplating the whole downtown. Was ground floor retail or ground floor activation for the public ever contemplated in this design? It was reviewed however to the choice, the business decision, the choice was to provide additional amenities on the ground floor compared to other places within the building. Still with the intent to really provide activation to the ground floor. We think having these amenity uses and to activate really because with these large paying glasses on the ground floor and pedestrians being able to walk by and see activity, we think it's going to be a nice addition to the property, although to answer your question directly, I mean, we are looking at this project solely as a residential instead of a mixed use project. Okay, thank you. And also on the landscaping photograph, I noticed that there were, and you can kind of see it on this one too, are there no shade trees on Palmetto Park Road? Yes, so within the landscape strip between the sidewalk and Palmetto Park Road, there is existing infrastructure. It's a utility line by the city, wherein a typical shade tree would cause conflicts with that existing infrastructure. So what we've done instead Is that we've included three palm trees that will still provide shade and refuge to pedestrian walking by it's just it's not Technically meets the definition of a shade tree Okay, thank you very much. That's all the questions I have. So would anyone else like to speak? I have a couple cards. If anyone just want to remind her, if anyone does wish to speak, make sure that you're sworn in. If you're not, just let me know. Mr. Kay, invite you up to the podium first. Please state your name and address for the record. You'll have up to three minutes to speak. I'm David K. 327 East Royal Palm Road. I want to preface the remarks by saying that I'm really glad to see additional residential units in downtown. I'm not speaking in any way to oppose the project. However, I have a plea to this developer, this architect, other developers, other architects, and the CRA. As part of a walkable downtown, the ability to walk between buildings instead of driving is very important. As more people live downtown, what people have friends they choose to visit. When we first moved downtown, we had friends renting in 200 East. And I was shocked that the only pedestrian entrance was through the garage. When the Alina opened, there's no pedestrian interest. The only way in from the sidewalk is to walk up the driveway. I really strongly believe that developers and architects should be providing meaningful pedestrian entrances directly from the street, covered, or even not, as opposed to having to force guests to walk through driveways. And as best I can tell on what was shown, this building is sorely lacking that. And I would also say that if the drop-off is in the garage, that means someone dropping off a friend after a nighty out a limo or an Uber is going to pull in the garage and somehow have to make a U-turn. And it would be a lot better to have a covered real pedestrian entrance accessible from the sidewalk with a place for guests and residents to be dropped off. Thank you. Thank you, Thank you Mr. K. I have another one more card. Joanne Sheller. The Sheller reminder just to state your name and address and you'll have up to three minutes to speak. Yes, hi. Good afternoon. My name is Joanne Sheller. I'm the owner of 200 East Palo de Park Road Partman's 812 and 816 Respectfully I'm against this proposal And I really think that the city council should rethink the urban planning that they're pushing down the throats of all the citizens living downtown. This proposal will put a fifth building over nine stories within a two block radius of where this building is proposed. It's architecturally totally incompatible with everything else that's there. The views and so the density within that two block radius is unlike anything else in downtown. I did a quick Facebook post to see if anybody else was annoyed that this building was going up. And within a day, I got 50 other citizens saying yes, we're annoyed, but nobody listens to us. So maybe the city council can put some kind of survey out or something, but just because people don't show up to your meetings doesn't mean they're happy with everything going on. As for the views, the only view these people are going to have are of my balcony. I'll have no privacy and they will have no privacy. I estimate that this building is about 100 feet from 200 east where I live. And currently now I can see everything going on on the TVs at 327 Royal Palm. The Super Bowl is going on. I see at least 12 different TVs showing the Super Bowl. With this building squashed in between, I don't know what I'm going to be able to see in those buildings, but there will be no privacy for either them or me. And lastly, traffic, you can't say it's only 28 new residences. The current building that they're tearing down has been abandoned for at least four to five years. Have you lived there? You know that. And you've already approved at 375 East Royal Palm, a assisted living of 193 units that hasn't even been considered in the traffic flow of downtown. So respectfully between privacy, between the architectural elements, not being consistent with everything else. And for the density that this is gonna create, I respectfully wish you would reconsider. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Schiller. Would anyone else like to speak? Mr. Anjamb, were you sworn in yet? Ms. Siddharth, please serve him in. Please raise your right hand. Do you swear a firm that any testimony you may give before this public hearing will be true through and accurate? I do. Thank you. So Jonathan Ungi and 6501, Congress Avenue. Not against this project. Unfortunately, you have no right to a view. I've learned. Unfortunately, the densities in the downtown far surpassed this. But what I'd just like to point out again is so is our maximum density in the city 20 units an acre? Did you ask the Developer to consider affordable housing or workforce housing as part of this Gifts of more than 20 units an acre So I'd just love to point out the hypocrisies of the city and what it stands for and what it proposes as they talk out of both sides of their mouth. And it is, that is the shame part of it. And to the speaker here, I hope that you're in attendance in the future for what they have for the DDII 2.0 because densities may even be exceeding the densities that they allow which they've allowed 115 plus units and acre in the downtown So unfortunately as what you're saying it's not exactly factually correct But it's not what they allow in any other part of this city. And for instance, in this part of town, the buildings around here, the multifamily look not much different than the downtown. It's just passing density. And all you're doing is hurting property values and potential future development in the area that would allow it traffic wise, as she points out in the downtown, that's one lane and two lane roads, we got three lanes in every direction here. So I think it's about time that this council acknowledges the lack of density in other parts of the city that would allow for such development that would be meaningful. And stop over saturating the downtown as the people there don't want it. And I know you're gonna be coming for more in the very near future. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Ngin. Would anyone else like the opportunity to speak? Okay. Madam Chair, I would like to clarify as well. There are two entrances along Southeast Third Avenue for the project. There's one by the lobby. And then there's an additional one, which is in line with the loading zone as well. Those are the pedestrian entrances. Yes, two pedestrian entrances. Thank you. OK, one more time for anyone else like the opportunity to speak. Okay, would any of the participants in the public hearing wish across exam and anyone who provided testimony? No, okay, so right now I'm going to close the public hearing and ask for a motion and a second to adopt DDRI IDA number CRP-23-02. So move Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr Starr. Mr. Wigtter. Okay. Is there any discussion? Members? No. I'll just say. Thank you. To the resident at 200 East, thank you for coming. We do listen to you. I'm sympathetic to your concerns about views, but views are not a protected category. I'm not. Not views privacy. It's not my opinion. Excuse me Madam, I would like to thank you. And we only have comments from there. I'm sympathetic to both of those concerns, but neither of those are reasons to not vote for a project that meets all of the other requirements. And in fact exceeds them in our downtown plan. Your correct or downtown plan is more dense. It is a development of regional impact that was approved by the voters back in 1992 and it has been in place for 30 years. It allowed the building that you're in now and it's consistent with that. I appreciate the design here and it is a net production and traffic. And you know for all of those compliant, I'm going to vote for approval. But I do appreciate your concerns. It's just not a reason that under our code and what's been approved by the residents and has been in our code for 30 years is a reason to say no. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Singer. Thank you for the clarification. It's also the first development with the new guidelines that we've architectural guidelines place as well. Any other discussion? No. Okay. Miss Sidden's can you please call. Oh, Mr. Wakeder. No, I agree with Mayor Singer. The only thing I was going to say is that, you know, in terms of this project, it's in terms of 28 units, it's quite a small project, relatively speaking, and they've exceeding the parking requirements. If anything, I think there's too much parking. If we're going to want to get into a future where we really want to have a walkable downtown, I think we're going to have to start reducing the parking maximums. So people are required to use the other modes of transportation that are out there. And like the mayor said, you know, 30 years ago there was a decision collectively that this is what the downtown was going to be, a more walkable dense urban environment. And I think this project meets, certainly meets that, especially with the new guidelines. So I'm in favor of it. Thank you, Ms. Drucker. Thank you to the resident, Ms. Schiller, for coming out. You said that you had a Facebook, which we did not see, but what I'll tell you to everyone here and whoever's listening or watching is that we didn't get any expertise. We had no emails, so we would have shared that at the beginning of the meeting. So for those folks that are out there, there's something coming up that you are not particularly fond of. You don't have to come to our meetings. We're accessible via email, people email us all the time. And that's why we have these full disclosures as to who we've spoken to and who we have not. So on this particular project, this is the first time we've heard and it was from you in terms of our resident input and Mr. Kay today. But again, if you have issues with this or any other issues, we're very accessible to this council. Not only are we all over different events during the city eating at restaurants, but you could email us and you could call our offices or you could come to our meetings. But I appreciate you coming out and voicing your concern. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments? Okay, No. Miss Siddons, will you please call the roll? Wicked her. Yes. Now, Cless. Yes. Singer. Yes. Dr. Cless. Yes. Yes. Thompson. Yes. Motion passes. Five votes to zero. Thank you, everyone. So now we're going to Yes. Motion passes five votes to zero. Thank you everyone. So now we're going to open the floor for public requests. Last ask anyone who would like to come up speaking on matters regarding the downtown CRA. You'll have up to three minutes to speak. Please state your name and address. Mr. Ungen. So can I ask for the workshop meeting? Can you just say your name and address? Sure. Jonathan and GN651 Congress Avenue. Instead of speaking now, can I just do it in the workshop and get five minutes? Or do I do three now and it's your workshop? Mr. Mayor. Mr. Anjane, why don't you go ahead and speak now? Sure. All right. So I'd like to speak about code enforcement in this city as a whole, but as it relates directly to the property next door. So again, I'm speaking about code enforcement which affects the CRA and the town as a whole. So code enforcement corruption. Co-Enforcement Corruption. So Mr. Danberg next door has a resolution that was passed in the City Council in 2015. It was a mixed use component which needed the retail component in order to meet its PMD matrix of 100 points. Under the original development order, the development shouldn't have received a certificate of occupancy for the residential until the retail was completed because it needed the 100 points for the retail. Instead, the certificate of occupancy was given in 2017, no retail ever built, the developer sold it less than a year later for $92 million. No retail still sits there. Mr. Shad initiated a code enforcement case in November 2022. The developer disagreed, brought them to a special magistrate in March 2023. The special magistrate heard the case and ruled in the city's favor. The developer appealed the case to the 15th Circuit Court and dropped the appeal. The developer had 180 days to either seek a plan amendment or IE, a text amendment, a sponsorship was needed, or 270 days to obtain a building permit to construct. If they did not, they would face $100,000, sorry, $1,000 per day until it was satisfied. They could ask for an extension if good faith was shown prior to the established deadlines. The 180 days expired in September, 270 in December. So it's a little murky as to when they asked for their extension. It was well after. It was after the fact. I'm still waiting on that. The fine would run despite of any sort of extension. There was no effort to get building permits prior to or in the penalty phase up until March 8th, 2024 when the next hearing was, which was approximately 90 days after the misdeed line. A fine was set for $87,000. Good faith was required for the extension. The developer's attorney stated that they were only seeking an extension to get the building permit. The magistrate set aside the fines and gave 90 days to get the building permit. For some reason, the city has been negotiating with a developer who lost a code case, was adjudicated, appealed, dropped the appeal, promised that they were only asking for an extension to get building permits, and now the city is willing to allow until April 2026 to get building permits. How does the city ever plan on certifying a fine for non-compliant code with a case such as this. Why does the city feel the developers should now get until April 2026, 610 more days to merely get a building permit? And how is this in the city's best interest? Code compliance is about achieving code compliance as fast as possible. And I'll be back for the workshop. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Unchin. Is there anyone else who would like to speak on matters in the downtown CRA? Okay, seeing none, we're going to move on to resolutions and regular public hearings. We have the amendment to the agenda to remove this item. And we are going to keep moving on to, we have other business, we have no other business to consider. So now we are going to go to the directors report. Mr. Brown, let's see our budget workshop. Thank you, Chair. Steven Timberlake, the special projects manager with financial services is going to present the CRAs proposed budget for 2024-25. This is to review it in advance of the public hearing at the next meeting. Thank you, Chair. Good afternoon members. I'm gonna give you a brief overview of the FY25 fiscal budget for the CRA. So we will start with some of the achievements for 23-24. We completed the phase four signage for the Brightline station as well as some way finding for vehicular signage, replacing the signs on Palmetto Park and two new signs on the federal. We also have started the Boka Connect service, which saw just as an FYI 861 total riders for the month of July 1861 rides 1400 passengers. So that's moving along well. We also coordinated with municipal services to evaluate phase of the Booker-Tone Palmetto Park Road connectivity study and study for implementation of a multimodal strategy. So the development order stands with 921,000 feet of office equivalent yet to be approved and just over a million approved but not yet built. Of the amount not yet built, that includes over 1,100 units of residential units and roughly 308 hotel rooms. So the upcoming goals is to continue to amend the downtown plan to include specific project details for redevelopment projects in line with agency goals and objectives for the downtown. Continue to coordinate with municipal services on efforts to improve walkability of the downtown area through improvements such as upgraded decorative lighting for downtown streets and pedestrian facilities and infrastructure enhancements at crosswalks. We will also prepare and implement an RFP to analyze and evaluate options to provide an east west pedestrian connectivity for the downtown from barriers such as Dixie Highway and the railroad tracks. And finally, support the Brineline's train station with funding and design for construction of a platform on the east side of the tracks. So the CRA Organizational Chart is made up of the CRA board and the executive director. And then all of the other staffing is staffed through an interlocal agreement with the City of Boca Raton. This agreement last updated in 2009 covers services such as the City Manager's Executive Director, the City Attorney, as the Booker Routon CRA's Legal Council, as well as City staff from Development Services, Police Services, Code Enforcement, Municipal Services, Recreation Services, and the financial service departments among others. As an FYI, the current budget for the next year calls for roughly 3.9 million in personnel services, reimbursed to the city. So the CRA consists of one fund, the operating fund, which funds all of this agency's day-to-day operation to the use of city staff from the departments I just mentioned, including the office for the CRA and all general administrative plan review, marketing services, the parking meter enforcement services, as well as the day-to-day dealings with the public and the developers. The redevelopment agency has seen significant growth and tax developers. Now, the redevelopment agency has seen significant growth and tax increment. We are up to $2.6 billion. This chart here shows the tax increment growth over the last five years. The red on the bottom is the frozen base from the 1980s at 75 million. So that equates to driving most of the revenue budget for the CRA. So for the fiscal year 25, we are anticipating a budget of $26 million worth of revenue for the year of which the tax increment is funding 22.5 million of. The rest of it comes from our normal fees, marketing meters, mygion and park revenue, as well as our general interest earnings. And a pie chart format, you can see the tax revenue makes up the vast majority or 85% of that total revenue. So on the expense side, we're budgeting a total of $60.5 million worth of expense, 2.5 administrative parking services for 2.5 and then 1.5 million for downtown policing, small amounts for code compliance municipal services, a capital outlay of $22 million nearly and then repaymentment projects at the year end of 24.95 million is anticipated for the budget for next year, 34 million from this year to next year. So how does that equate on the pie chart? You can see the capital outlay roughly about 36% of the total budget administration parking services at 4% code compliance downtown police between 1 and 3%. So I mentioned the appropriated funds for future redevelopment projects. There are three that we are appropriating funds from this year to next year's fiscal year or beyond. The traffic lighting for $6.4 million or $6.1 million downtown Pomato Park Road for $24 million and then $4 million for CRA roadway and sidewalk enhancements. That total is the appropriation. New projects for $25. We anticipate converting three part time parking people into a full time parking enforcement person and then a construction project manager from municipal services that will help us through our CRA project list. The other item we've got on there that's unusual is our parking vehicles have come to the end of their life so we are going to get specialty parking vehicles that are now or that will make it easier to get through Meijner Park during busy hours and are 100% electric to help with the environment. So with that $21 million worth of capital spend we have a number of projects that are on our CIP program for the CRA, everything from downtown walkability improvements for specific project, heart-skate program, I mean meter parking improvements, traffic lighting and mass-arms, downtown decorative street lights, Palmetto Park Road, connectivity, as well as walkability improvements, CRA sidewalk and roadway improvements in the sandborne square renovations. In addition, we're anticipating some additional park improvements. Our CRA roof replacements, which is comprised primarily, primarily around the amphitheater, our parking and analysis, our parking analysis study as well as some transit program, Brightline Station, the East West pedestrian connectivity, starting that and then the transit orientation. And then I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you, Mr. Chamberlain. Does anybody have any questions from Mr. Chamberlain? Mr. Wigter? Yes, thank you. As you know, we just extended the CRA and the TIFF last year, this year, earlier this year. We've had many conversations, some of them offline, Mr. Zervis and Mr. Brown about how the funds and the overage of the budget for this fiscal year, because now we've amended the downtown plan, will be applied to next year and they will not be a return of the taxing agencies of approximately $10 million. I just wanna confirm on the record that we've done all the proper steps that are required to retain those funds to the city for the use for these future projects. Yes, we have. Mr. Service, do you agree? Yes, we have. Mr. Derbys, do you agree? Yes, we have. And that was illustrated as the appropriation for specific redevelopment projects both in this year's budget and next year's budget. That is pursuant to specific Florida statute that requires that those funds be appropriated for specific projects included in the redevelopment plan, which is what's being proposed within this budget, and that will be adopted as part of the budget when that comes before your board next month. I understand, but just so we confirm, and it's on the record, there is no further budget amendment required to make sure that that overage gets now applied to the special projects that we've approved. That's correct, pending final adoption of the CRA budget that includes that specific appropriation. Okay, thank you. Looking, going to parking meters, I don't know which slide it is, I apologize, because when the book they gave us is different from these. But on the parking meters, it looks like pretty much that the revenues are static at around 900,930, something like that. But a couple more back. Right there. So our budget, I mean, is pretty static at 930,000. Our expenses, however, for parking services seem to be going up quite dramatically. And this is certainly a loss leader. And then that's 2425 budget. It's looking at 2.2 million for expenses. I also see that later on in the slides you had some sort of parking analysis, parking planning study. Can we maybe talk about that just for a second in terms of, you know, we know we don't want people parking here all day, but having the parking meters here and being such a loss to the city, what can we do to improve those things? So that's a layered question to start with. So that's only a portion of the parking revenue that the CRAs, that's the portion of the revenue from the parking program is in the CRA and a portion is also in the city's budget. Okay. So I think that's just a piece of the puzzle. For the other, the reason the parking services is going up so much from this year to next year is those parking vehicles will be expense there and that's just a one time every five or six years. And they are more expensive than a regular vehicle, in this case as well as some infrastructure to make sure we can charge them when we need to charge them and that type of thing. So I think you will see a peak on the expense and then it will drop back off the following year. No, thank you, that's helpful. Also with respect to the next line item, the Meisner Park lease for this year and last year, I guess it was approximately $3.8 million. Your budget for next year is $1.8 million. My recollection is that because it's some sort of percentage rent clause that this is the base rent that's we're not yet calculating what the percentage rent is because we have budgeted that at the base rent number and then whatever we get on a percentage rent basis has been a gravy to the CRA budget for lack of a better way to put it. Right. No, thank you. Thanks. My only common here was I think we've been talking about doing some digital display advertising and what not. I don't know if that's included in some of the walkability improvements that are here in terms of the pavers and things like that. I don't know if that's just in the general operating fund type thing or if you need specific recommendations to have those included in the budget. I'm not sure on the CIP projects if any of them include a digital signage. Yeah, and that's something that we'll review as we review the CIP and they would be, I would consider them to be mobility enhancements for the downtown. So they are covered in the general proposals for the year. Don't expect a high expense in that area. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Let me see. Was there a separate line item for the circuit for the new circuit system? Is there a separate line? There is just an operations. It's just part of operations, part of the administrative expenses. It's not a capital program, so it's not called out separately. Thank you. I appreciate you mentioning briefly in the beginning, the ridership, obviously myself, and I'm sure my colleagues are interested to see how it takes, and to make sure also that we market it appropriately, to make sure that we know that it's available, because I know a lot of people, they see it, but they're not quite sure how it works yet. So I think us marketing it to the public is going to be important as well. Madam Chair, nothing else? Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Rector. Mr. Rector? Anyone else? No? Okay. All right. Thank you, Mr. Timmerlake. Thank you. Mr. Brown. We'll move on to the government campus RFQ scope of services. No? Okay. All right. Thank you, Mr. Timmerlake. Thank you. Mr. Brown, we'll move on to the government campus RFQ scope of services update. You have a very brief update. We are continuing to look at the RFQ language and evaluate it. I don't have any specifics to bring you today just to let you know that we're continuing to work on it and we will report back to you at the next meeting. Thank you, Mr. Brown. Does anybody have any questions on that? Okay. Moving on to the attorney's report. Deputy City Attorney, Mr. Kailer, any reports? Madam Chair, I have no report. Thank you. Now we're going to go on to the commissioners report. And item A on this is something that I had asked for and it was basically a high-level visioning session on the downtown government campus and I thought that since we really haven't had any visioning sessions and I haven't had the chance to speak with any of my colleagues about what they envision. And there's been a lot of chatter out there recently. I'd like to have a discussion up here. So I have some thoughts, you know, basically just would like to start out with what is our vision and what do we think the community would like to see. And who would like to kick this off? Okay, Mayor Singer. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I want to thank you for putting this on the agenda, at least before last Tuesday. And I make that note because there was a blog post that had some inaccurate and misleading and downright incorrect information that circulated after the agenda was published and made publicly available. So you were taking proactive steps. And I want to highlight this because that post suggested that things had not been discussed ever before. To the contrary, there have been more than 20 or nearly 20 or more public discussions of this subject since 2016 and I'm looking back at a note I sent a number of residents and already I understand that in the last went out about two hours ago and have already gotten a lot of people thanking us for the correct information, which is we've been discussing this for years. There's no fast tracking. In fact, I think, you know, having, we started in 2017 with consultants on this, paused for the pandemic and this has been the top priority for the last two years. So with that all said and out of the way and we're gonna have lots more discussion, particularly if unsolicited offers come in as they may. I've envisioned and we talked about a goal setting, but the vision was a pedestrian oriented, transit oriented community that creates walkable, a walkable district on the west side of the tracks, tying into our Brightline station that no longer treats a city hall and community center as an isolated moat surrounded by non active uses. That you would have a mix of retail and restaurant to serve the community. Of course, starting primarily with a new community center and a new city hall to serve our residents. Eventually a police station here or elsewhere, depending on how it works. And then a mix of residential and office to create the type of walkable, vibrant district we've talked about creating in the downtown. That is the standard practice elsewhere. I've had a vision, it's nothing on the scale, but my vision was Brickle City Center. if you've been there, it's much taller. Don't want that. But you have an exciting mix of uses. You've got sky bridges. We could have a sky bridge potentially creating that above-grade pedestrian crosswalk or connection from the west side of the tracks and the Bright Line Station and what would be our new city campus over to the east side and the historic downtown of Meister Park. That's something we've been talking about but this would seem to integrate well with that. And if you complete this mix of uses and have a lot of activity at the ground level with restaurants and retail and then the other mixes there, you create an interesting and rich tableau that will create a place and not just create a city hall that is isolated but a place that we can all enjoy. Myzner Park replaced a dilapidated shopping mall that the east side of which was even worse with a gross retail plaza. Grows is maybe a little overbought but substandard retail plaza and it turned into what is now the post picture postcard for bokeh for 30 years We have an opportunity to do the planning now and with partnership from the private sector who can build more efficiently Who can respond to our requirements who can? Shift risk to them to mix all of these uses. We know what we need on the city side, but we're on the business of building retail or restaurant or residential, and it makes sense to try to take advantage of the proximity of all those things to take advantage of the new gateway to our city, the Bright Line Station. So that's a big grain scheme. And also just for my personal take, I've talked to Mr. Brown, we have those historic Bayonin trees. They may not last so long, but they do provide a nice, they provided a visioning sense for me that you cluster something around a very lushly landscaped area and you know set in the conversations I've had with people of inquired, it's talking about preserving that sort of canopy, whether with those particular trees or in case they don't stand up requiring someone to provide a lot of canopy. So we have that pedestrian, not just there, but, you know, line pedestrian streets there. Finally, you know, third street doesn't connect all the way through. So that might be an opportunity to create some other more non-vehicle traffic because you don't need it for that one block so much. Those are some thoughts. Happy to opine more but I'll stop there. Thank you very much. I would like to go next. Mr. Walker. Thank you. I'm trying to act this. I agree the mayor kind of summed it up pretty accurately. I think for us, most cities that are, not even as large as Boca, have gone through their city hall and government centers being redone if you look to our partners to the south, whether you go to Pompano, whether you go to our partners in the north, like Largo, or any of the other cities that are going through this change, whether they're having government centers and having P3s, City of Durral comes to mind. There's a lot of cities, Hollywood. There's a lot of other cities that have been going through these changes. Our city hall is outdated. We are very behind. We've been having these conversations since before I was up here. And obviously the pandemic, things were stalled. But now we are kind of looking forward to what's coming next. What is next for Boka? Because we, and I always use as an example, I never sat in chambers at City Hall because there were two small and then we had COVID. The only time I've had meetings has been in this. This is the only City Hall that I've known. And we as a city that we are, we pride ourselves. And all of us, just all of us, attended up here, went to Florida League of Cities. Boka is a pioneer in a lot of areas. And our city, hard-to-government center, is not reflective of the innovators that we want to be and ought to be. So when I hear, and I did read the article, and I'm glad that you brought that up, just misinformation. Nothing is done. Well, we had our meeting last time. I know what I said. You could go back and listen. I said we didn't want an RFQ to go out because we had a lot of meetings that were set up with many different individuals, whether it be developers, whether it be real estate, whether it be mobility and traffic engineers, architects, about what the downtown should look. And I didn't want to be in a corner of silence where I couldn't listen to everyone. We have received a lot of emails in the past few days about transparency. We're being transparent. We're having discussions in open forum and we want your input. This is a very big project that's going to affect our community. We have to find a way to cut and get to the ball rolling and saying that we need to take our time, well the time has come, we are here. We need people to work, we need places where people to work our employees don't have a place to go to our municipal services building is crowded. Our city hall has had water intrusion that we fix. I know I was in city hall a few weeks ago, we found a spot for me, but there was no one for me to sit as the elected official on this dius. I want to be able to go to City Hall and have a place to sit and meet with my constituents or others. So the time is here. We haven't made any deals. There's nothing going on in the background that we are not discussing. This is the same process that we're going through just like when we welcome the Brightline. I also heard something about a referendum and I wanted to ask Mr. Brown. I don't believe there was a referendum on Brightline. There was a referendum on the Center for Fine Arts. Those are areas that we lease the land out and we didn't have to have a referendum. So I think there's a lot of misinformation. I'm glad that you put this so we could have this discussion. But there's nothing that's done. It's just so we're getting ready to move and we're starting to hear traction from people that want to come to our city and continue building on the momentum that we started. So with that, I'll turn it over back to Ms. Nacless. Thank you, Mr. Drucker. Mr. Riger? Thank you very much, colleagues. Mayor Singer, Ms. Nockles for bringing this up. You can get my presentation ready, please. And Ms. Drucker, of course, I appreciate your comments. Yeah, I mean, obviously, you know, this is a preliminary planning discussion. We're in the pre-planning phase in a preliminary vision planning concepts such as pillars, the government functions on government campus. Mayor Singer said it, maybe some of the functions that are currently at City Hall will not be at City Hall anymore. City Hall is now not the center of our town. We've annexed in Western districts, and so the center of town could be something northern. I've mentioned previously here, and I've talked to Mr. Brown about the fact of where do our municipal workers live? We wanted to be convenient for our municipal workforce to come to work. Getting downtown might not be as convenient for them if they don't live in the city. So it might be easier for them to have a trial pass or to commute somewhere in the northern district of the city and we could use some of the, you know, commercial real estate sector that's one of the highlights of our city. We could use existing space. We don't have to build it. And we could use this space, more valuable space for more revenue generating activities that more satisfies the taxpayers needs to keep taxes stable, which is one of the things that I think we all think about. The things downtown, I think, of course, some institutional, the community service center, like the mayor talked about, and of course, recreation. We're not going to be eliminating recreation downtown despite rumors and falsehoods to the contrary, but we are going to have to reimagine it. And so obviously like we said, evaluation feasibility and the financial benefits of the taxpayers is going to be critical. The TOD functions in and around the station in the campus, housing, retail, small business, and the mobility and connectivity points. And of course, flex use. Maybe some spaces can be used for other things. Of course, some of these things overlap, and some of them should be separated. As the mayor noticed, I started going back to the agenda in previous meetings, and I've said this before in other meetings, there was a significant discussion about the government campus and the plan. I think Mr. Thompson was here at the end of that discussion, not at the beginning, but that plan, again, consultants, all of the city staff came up with a plan that was not adopted, but it was really, you know, it was really maybe it wasn't quite ready and maybe it wasn't going far enough. It was just replacing a building for a building, like you said, kind of keeping it siloed, you know, and not activating the site. So, rightfully, I think it didn't move forward. But some of the concepts, like we've mentioned, about East West connectivity, they're still with us today. And certainly, they're still in our strategic priorities today. And if you go back in the years, we've learned a lot of things from this process. So this is not like we're starting a process today. We've started a process 10 years ago. We're learning from this process. And we're continuing to learn from it, adopt the things that we think are important to the city's future, walkability and mobility because they reduce traffic, sky-way bridges because they reduce traffic. Likewise, our predecessors and the issues that they're passionate about. If you go back and listen to previous meetings, of course, I can never say it as nice as they did, but certainly some of the things that they said stick with me. Of course, Deputy Mayor Arorks, you know, passion for the arts, for culture and for place making are something that are always in the back of my mind when I'm thinking about doing something. And of course, Deputy Mayor Monica Mance, her passion for sustainability, walkability, and hopefully Jeff Speck's idea of, you know, the useful, safe, comfortable, and interesting walk Are things that we can we can apply down here their opportunities that we can do So certainly they're with me, but of course the fourth pillar is where it all started is learning from our histories how we can plan this Okay a hundred years ago this man came to this place, and in two years, he built arguably the still, the two most beautiful buildings in the city. Okay? Which are beautiful. Their foundations, this hotel is our Eiffel Tower, literally and figuratively. Okay? And so we can also plan some better things for the future. It doesn't need to be ravish. We don't require anything. Right? We're here. I'm happy to stay here. You know, this is fine. But all the other city services, it is time for those to be redeveloped because the building is beyond its useful life. Right? The roof. There is no more duct tape. There is no more duct tape that you could put on this building. You know, it's so eventually it needs to be done. But certainly we could embrace our predecessors' history and do those things and create pillars, you know, in our planning stages, right? If we're trying to be visionary. I was fortunate this summer to go to Spain and Paris with my family. And of course, we're always thinking about that. We're trying to do something new. But of course, in many other cities, it's already been done before. So in Barcelona, they have obviously the amazing architecture of Gaudi, which is just incredible as someone who's in real estate to enjoy. But one of the things that they had was an open-air market. They had a couple in the city and there's some in Paris, but there's plenty in the United States too. There was one in Savannah when I was there. But an open-air covered market could be an arts and festival venue, right? Because now, if the center for the arts is built, there will be no more place for all of the farmers' markets and things like that. There will be no place for them there. So we will need to reimagine where are those functions that the city and the people and the businesses care about, where those going to happen, which I've said before. It could be farmers' markets, it could be small business, boosts and fares. But one of the other things that it could be is flex recreation, right? If we have a covered open air market over there, it could be full-down basketball hoops. It could be volleyball. It could even be a temporary pickable courts. But the point is you'd be able to do this stuff while it's raining because it does happen to rain a lot in Florida. So the point is it could be always in use for something productive and potentially even revenue generating. And that doesn't have to be a large space, but when you're talking about 40 acres of land, certainly it could be a gathering point and it can give people a reason to get off the train. I think that's what we're trying to do here is take the vision that happened before and give people a reason to get off the train, make it exciting, activate it. It doesn't need to be the Taj Mahal. Certainly I think this city is about understated elegance, but I think it's something that we can wrap our head around and certainly partner with the private sector to do something good. And absolutely getting a lot of public input is going to be important. So those are some of my thoughts. I have a very significant appendices with some of the other RFPs that have happened, some of the other issues, previous excerpts from Deputy Mayor's Mayouts, other research on other P3s and whatnot, the Margate 50-AGR RFP, and of course, ChatGPT's work on it as well. So please, for those at home, take time to read it. Give us your comments, absolutely. Give us your comments. There will be plenty of visioning sessions. This is just the beginning, but it's the beginning of this phase, which has been going on for 100 years, not just even 10 years. Thanks very much. Thank you, Ms. Reuter. And I'll disagree with you on one thing. You were a little self-deprecating, but I don't think you have any problem conveying your passions eloquently. Thank you. So I know I'm whatever accused you of that. Appreciate it. Mr. Thompson? I have a very open mind as it, how does it relate to what our government campus should look like. And that open mind extends to where things go. I think we have a sense of what it needs to replace because we have a couple of buildings that are well past their useful life. It matters a great deal to me that our staff have suitable working conditions. And at some point we're getting passed and creeping into the area where it's not that. And it doesn't take much if you go to other cities to just to realize that while we have an elite and very talented workforce, we're forced into work in a place that is substandard, you just are, especially relative to other cities. I don't want that to happen anymore. And so far from it, the case being that this is some sort of done deal for our from it is I have a very open mind as to how this is going to happen. But one other thing that, so it matters to me that we do this in a way that is appropriate for our staff and gives them suitable working conditions, but we have to do it responsibly. That matters a lot to me too. We can't get into the situation where you have like Mr. Wigdard's reference to Taj Mahal. I'm not going to stand for that. We need to make sure that we do this in a responsible way. And in a way that is appropriate for a government. But I think it's also important that we acknowledge that this has been a transparent process. We've been having this discussion since, at least since 2018, which is far back as I was here, having those discussions about this. This has been one of our strategic priorities for how many years now, right? The now is my son would like to say it's time to fish or cut bait. Right? It's time to get moving on this. And as long as we continue to do it in a way that present provides a suitable place for our folks to work that does so responsibly and that does so in a transparent way, as I'm sure we're all gonna make sure is how it's gonna happen, I think we need to keep moving on this. That is my vision. Now, there's a lot of details. No, but I recognize, and again, I stress, I have an open mind as it relates to where things go, whether it has to be downtown. I'm not certain that City Hall needs to be there. Certain things may not make sense to have them down there. We're in the process of identifying a consultant or putting out a RFQ for a consultant that can help us guide that process. That's going to be very important. All of those discussions when they report to us are going to be in the public. So this is not going to be a situation where this is going to be an ambush to anybody. It's not going to be a surprise to anybody. It's not a surprise to anybody now. If we've been following along the long-city discussions here, we've been having this discussion for a long time, but it's time that we get moving on it. Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Mr. Singer? I'm sure thank you. Yes. And by the way, what I said at the outset, because I realize I had some more thoughts, I said almost all of that, if not verbatim, over the three days over a strategic planning in May, I said at the prior in 2023, this is nothing new. I agree with all of my colleagues. I'm open-minded to a lot of things. I will say that I believe it is important that we have the community facing city hall portion, because you've got the back of house in the front of house. I believe the front of house should be on that campus. It's been in there historically, even as we've molded our city. And we are getting by here, but I think there's benefit there in creating that kind of use there. If you have some public facing component there, kind of integrates with the site. But again, I'm open-minded. I agree. I'm not looking for a Taj Mahal, but we need to look beyond a community center that was constructed in annex before 1960 when our population was 8,800. And a community center itself that was built in the 60s when we were a city of maybe one tenth of our size. We have grown. Speaking of that specific place, we've been meeting in here and this is a much more conducive meeting than the chambers from 1964. You can't even fit in there and we couldn't use it during COVID and even after. You can't walk past the seats. People were smaller and shorter than. I'm seeing a flex space. I'm seeing not a dedicated city council chambers, but a flex space where you're not using it just for six nights a week or a month. You have it available to the community for events. People can rent it out. People can hold events there. I've discussed that with others. We talked about housing and attracting things that work spaces for employees and attracting things for our City employees. As Mr. Bringer said, I've suggested that if we're going to have housing since we control the land, that we ought to have affordable housing dedicated for City employees, that we make available City employees. that would be a huge ability for, enable us in a major way to attract and retain better city employees, allow us to compete and reflect the fact that we have a well-recompetitive on the price market, our city is more expensive than other cities. So I think it will help us retain and attract talent and because it would be our land, we have a lot of opportunities there to partner with the private sector. I think it's also easier. We've talked so much over years about walkable downtown, a lot of focus on a five block stretch from Palmetto Park Road. We've got 13, 14 blocks where we can do a complete redo here and create walkability on a much larger scale to the recreation point. I think that was a good one. I want it. We can preserve all these recreation uses if the shuffleboard court, which is not well used, has to move parking there. You could put retail and restaurant around the first floor and have a high ceiling point. That's kind of a vision. You kind of shield the parking in there. And then whatever the parking deck is, if it's flat on top, you put tennis courts and pickle boards and put a cover over there. So we can retain that, you know, we have the ability potentially to retain and enhance the recreation that's there while creating a better use at the ground level. And we're not, you know, you're keeping low heights there still. Nothing is on the table yet. Everything is on the table. There's no specific proposal, and I'm open to all of these things. And again, this is not the beginning. 2017 was the slide that Mr. Winger just showed. That's when we hired the consultants, kicked off the latest process. Conversations about City Hall have been going on since 1964. It was expanded and rebuilt in part in 1981 to 1983. And even then there was conversation, which Mr. Brown knows better than I do, about the inadequacies there. So for me, the first focus is about the residents and the community and public space that they deserve. And we can focus a lot of things around there, but create an integrated hole that's greater than the sum of the parts. Thank you, Mr. Singer. So I had jotted down a few thoughts as well and yes, I want to agree with all of my colleagues. This is not a rushed process. I know that it's been being talked about for years and then the pandemic happened. I saw Jeremy Rogers last week who said, yeah, we talked about it back in 2017-2018. Just didn't go anywhere. So it got stalled out, but we are picking it back up. It's nothing's rushed. Nothing is a done deal, as everybody has said. Nothing is on the table, but everything is on the table so Some of the things that I heard up here that that I really like and agree with one of them was the flex space for council chambers both mayor singer and And council member Wigdor you both talked about that the financial benefit to the taxpayers It is about 31 acres that we're talking about. Little over four acres of that is the police department. So it is a lot of very valuable land and it's an area that is may not exactly be in the center of our city anymore because as we've grown, our center made me move a little bit further west, but it's definitely the heart. And that is one of my goals and my visions is whatever happens here. We are not Miami. We are not even though it's an inspiration for the city center. You said not the height and everything, but, but just you find the heart of your city and We have to be open and look at everything and we have to look to other cities like like Mr. Trucker said and like Mr. Thompson said be open-minded and yes have suitable working conditions last last year We had to put a brand new roof on City Hall. We spent a lot of money, but we had rain pouring in. That's unacceptable for Boca Raton. So we have to move forward now. And again, it's not been rushed, but it is time. So some of the things that I had written down were addressing the public needs, including the community in creating a destination and a sense of place that's well connected to its surroundings, including the connectivity to the downtown, the library, the 100% corner like Mr. Brown calls it at Palmetto and Federal Highway, considering the social and economic impacts of the investment into the community, we have to have a positive walking experience. That's much better than it is now. I mean, we mobility and connectivity are high priority for us. And so we have this chance now to create something wonderful. I love having this blank slate that we can create, but still not forgetting who we are and where we're coming from. The activated public space almost like a book retuned central park. I'm kind of envisioning that with protected and connected walkways and bikeways and a lot to do keeping the banion trees. You know, those are part of who we are. And working around them, let's see, shops, courtyards, pocket parks, sense of place, I already said that. Do we consider moving the police station? It's a little over four acres. Why would we move it? How would that get funded? I don't know, but that has to be part of the whole situation. What does City Hall look and feel like? What needs to be incorporated for the future? So on top of a parking garage, I'm thinking, City Hall's 60 years old right now, how many years from now is it going to be before we have the driverless cars and the vertical takeoff and lifting and we have to consider all of that. We also have to consider our race to zero initiatives and carbon neutral buildings and all those kinds of things. I talked with Mr. Brown about what would recreation services like what would municipal services like how about the building department, the space needs assessment, who will take care of operations and maintenance and recreation services like the mayor said, do we keep recreation downtown, what can be portable, do we keep, you know, what do we keep and what do we move and where can it go. We're going to introduce cone of silence regulations tomorrow and talk about it at the next meeting. Residential, one of the first things I thought about was we need workforce housing down there. So we need to talk about what does that look like in the T.O.C. and other forms of housing down there. It may not just be that. Let's see office space, a possible hotel. The library. Do we incorporate the community space? Well, the mayor talked about having the flex space for community space. But do we keep the community center? Do we incorporate that into the library or do we keep it separate? Height parameters, we have cascading heights, we have center in the high, the center is the highest, the outside is the highest, what the scale on certain roads looks like on Palmetto, on Crawford, on Second, on Dixie, and what does a street skate look like? And there's just so much to think about, obviously, you've heard all of the comments here today. Mr. Wigter said we are in the pre-planning phase. We've been in the pre-planning phase for a while. So we're excited about this, and it should be a good thing moving forward. So we're looking forward to public input and getting this rolling and doing more of this. This was literally our first time that I've gotten to hear what my colleagues are even thinking about. So I was very happy to have that opportunity. That's all I'm going to say for right now is, and Mr. Singer, did you have something else to say? Sorry. I already went to vice-minister. You know, and thank you, Ms. Echlis. And I agree, I'm happy that we're having this discussion. You know, a couple of things that were out there, you know, I've been a transit champion for this council and you all have been very supportive of all the initiatives that we've all done in order to get mobility and connectivity. know some of the things that are going on in the community is like that Breyland is a failure. Breyland is not a failure. Breyland is a private commuter rail that it's used for different reasons. The tri rail is our public commuter rail. From someone that takes a tri rail, I take a tri rail, I take great pride in saying that I ride the tri rail because I do. I live very close to tri rail, it's affordable. We know that the buy line is a little bit expensive, depending where you're going. But it's definitely used by different sectors of our community. It appeals to other groups. Whether you're a corporate company, we know that they give discounts when we buy multiple tickets. Anything over four or I think it's six, I think it's four. It's like they give you a bigger discount. So using that rail is different than obviously the tri-rail. And that's why when we sit up here, when we discuss that all options are on the table, they should be. Because if you want more people coming in and out of the city to work and sometimes even play, tri-rail is a much better option affordable, right? It's a much more affordable option. We've had discussions of the second platform for Brightline, so that might bring in more, where there's an appropriations bill that we have at the federal level that is still up there, and our lobbyists are working on that, and I know that's a mayor's initiative. So maybe we have a second platform, maybe we'll have more stops here. There's a lot of moving parts, but to say that Brightline is a failure, I think it's a complete inaccurate statement. I just booked Brightline today because we're going to Orlando for another conference and that's the way I'm going to get to Brightline because it's more cost effective than building the city for the government return rate. So the other thing too, and I think it's coming up tomorrow and I'm a look to Mr. Kailer. I can discuss Children's Museum in this public forum. It's coming tomorrow as a quasi, correct? Tomorrow nights appeal is a quasi judicial. But I could still say something about that at this particular moment. Your comments are appropriate generally, but it's better to have the comments during the record tomorrow evening. Okay. Okay. Then, um, well, I'm going to say my comments actually right now because I started it. So children's museum is on that property and I know there are meetings going to be tomorrow and I've heard a lot, we've heard a lot of emails coming through and I've seen some social media on post. What I can say is, um, and I'll say this again tomorrow because I started and I'm just going to say it tomorrow as well. The Children's Museum is closed for almost five years. I happen to be on the board of the Children's Museum when it was open. It's a very cost of museum to have open and what we're trying to do here is move the museum so we could save singing pines, which is the original building, which did not sit where it's currently sitting. So I'll say the rest of my comments tomorrow, but I kind of wanted to say that because there's a lot of talk in the social media sphere that we're taking a historic property and moving it from a historic site, and that is not accurate. So anyways, tomorrow we'll have more conversation. Thank you, Mr. Wigtcher. Mr. Wigtcher? You know, Mr. Wigtcher, thank you for mentioning Brightline. Yeah, one of the things I just wanted to mention, as you saw in the 2017 presentation, they had an idea, the previous council, the consultants had an idea that the previous council, the consultant's had an idea that this is where transit would be, and I'm thankful to Mayor Singer and the previous council's for getting the bright line here. Like I said, I think the idea here is, bright line is certainly not a failure. It's an opportunity that we haven't taken advantage of yet. And so it's still just waiting for us to take advantage of this opportunity. Opportunity, I think any other city would be delighted to have a bright line in there. As I said, I think any other city would be, and as you can see, this is already happening up north and steward and Coco Beach and whatnot. Coco, they're delighted to have stations there because they know what it can bring if It's planned properly around it. So I think this gives us another opportunity And again, I've got to mention that. Thank you. Thanks for bringing it up Thank you mr. Adore mr. Brown. It just on bright line briefly We were very fortunate Through our initiative to be one of the first stations outside the original three plan And as mr. Wigger said I don't think it's a failure if we have cities all up and down the connection between here in Orlando looking to get a station. There were three cities in competition, I believe, for the one that was currently approved. No Fort Pierce was in. Stuart and Coco. So we had a lot of competition. So it's clearly a growing enterprise. And I think we'll see much more in the future. And again, I'll say we were very fortunate to have it here. It is clearly being used. It's not really intended to be a commuter service. It's a specialty service, but we're fortunate to have it. We're also fortunate to have a commuter rail station, a tri-rail at the same time. And we have them in two different locations in the city, which helps connectivity to work as well as play. Thank you, Mr. Rana. When we talk about those two stations, the Bright Line and the tri-rail, staff is constantly looking at ways where we can have better connectivity between the two as well. That's correct. And although I wasn't obviously on council when the agreement with Bright Line was made, aren't we, I know we kind of gone into Bright Line now, but aren't we, they're exceeding the number of stops in the city that was in the agreement, in the original agreement. Even though they have cut back on some stops, they are still exceeding the number of stops and it was never meant to be a commuter train. Correct. The agreement requires them to have the same level of service that they have in Fort Lauderdale. And they are meeting that standard. Perhaps exceeding it. We haven't done any analysis in the past couple of months. Okay, thank you. Mr. Thompson? All right, then I'll go round three and I normally wouldn't, but this is an important topic. Again, it's been the number one priority of the last two years in a row after six full days over those two years of strategic planning. So this is, I'm glad we're discussing it. And we have discussed some of this, but this is the first, I think, more recent full-raging conversation. So again, I appreciate you bringing it up, Madam Chair, a few things. Just, let me just finish on Brightline. We were the first station them to respond to our inquiries and they are fortunate to be here. We competed with more cities than just the ones there. And you can't judge Brightline. Brightline has already exceeded their expectations. They've exceeded their level of service, but you can't judge it yet because this is the type of transportation planning that you put in and you measure results not in weeks and months, but in years and decades. Orlando is not even open a full year and already we're seeing that. And given what Broward is already doing in terms of planning in their long range multimodal transportation plan to have the commuter rail going on the FEC tracks and working that out with FEC and Palm Beach County may soon follow suit. It was so vital that we got this so we may see the commuter availability from our downtown to downtown there. That the downtown train is how we got Bokeh Rattone in 1925. You needed a train to stop here to ferry people over to then the cloister. This is what we've had and this is what's been needed. And that's why it creates a new gateway that's a change from what we've had. It's not just 95, it's bright lines. So all of these planning reasons are so important. I have to say this because people already I think mistated things and people I don't want anyone thinking I'm crystal clear and shame on anyone who mischaracterizes. My comment about Brickle City Center was focused on the mix of uses and the elevated skybridge. It was not focused on anything near that height. I do not want to see that. It was also focused on that you have a rich mix of uses with high-end retail quality restaurants, class A office with some of the leading companies and a mix of residential, both rental and condo. That sort of concept is there. There are many others. Miami happens to be that skybridge is the happens to be the one I'm most familiar with. You see them in other cities from Toronto, which I haven't been to in 25 years, to Milwaukee, which connects Point to Point where I was recently, Minneapolis where I was 16 years ago. Those are not my freshest examples. The point is you can have things in a skybridge that create something better than just a overpass. You've got people, places for people to go and that gives connectivity to the site and across the east, west, quarter where that we need. We recently had a P3 summit sponsored by the Association for the American Art, the Association for the Improvement of American Infrastructure, AII. They're a group, it's a nonprofit. They presented to city staff and to us, they had, it was a regional gathering because we had mayors and council members and commissioners from across Florida, they happened to host it in Book of Ritone. I attended some staff members attended, everyone could have. But they gave other examples like Mr. Wigter did and Mr. Drucker did about other cities that have successfully used the P3 model to create a much better city hall and community center complex. And I think we checked it off. Yes, Brightline. It is a premium offering now. There will be more offerings there, but it's not just focused on Brightline. Brightline is a catalyst that has allowed us to reinvision what wasn't there in 2017 and why that plan really didn't go forward. At least for my opinion, there was just a city hall, that's it. We've got a chance to create so much more of what we want, pedestrian focused and future forward. And I look forward to those conversations. If the private sector comes forward soon, we'll have more to discuss it. Everyone's opinion will be there. If not, then we'll go out and seek it too. But the time is now, this isn't been fast-tracked. We're catching up in 2024, what we didn't do in 2023. And I want to thank our legal department for working on thinking about some issues, including one that tangentially relates to this for upcoming meetings. Just knowing that something's coming, so we're going to be ready and engaged. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Singer. Anyone else? final thoughts? Okay, well I just want to say thank you again. This was a great discussion. I'm glad we got to have it. And yes, Mr. Singer, I echo your thoughts. Everybody's been working really hard. So I want to thank everybody for that too. So we'll move on to Commissioner's reports. Vice-Chancellor, do you have any report? I do not. Thank you. Mr. Singer. I said enough thank you. Mr. Rucker. No thank you. Mr. Waker. Okay. So I do have a very short report because it wouldn't be a CRI report if I didn't include Miss Ruby Riley's list for upcoming events in the downtown and I want to thank her because in downtown Boca we want everyone to come early and stay late so thank you Miss Riley. Here's some of the downtown updates on August 28th and 29th at 5pm it's a reunion of sorts at Max's Grill as they bring you Carlos returns in Mexican pop up. For four hours enjoy a special menu featuring the flavors of South Florida iconic restaurant Carlos and Peppies, which was originally founded by chef Carlos Puglesi and Bert Rappaport. Get more information at maxesgrill.com. Here's what's coming up at the Funky Biscuit on August 29th at 7 p.m. stealing peaches and almond brothers review. August 30th at 9 p.m. true rumors, the definitive Fleetwood Mac show, September 5th and 6th at 9 p Awaken, the music of yes, and September 7th at 7pm, the boss project. Visit funkybiscuit.com for tickets. The studio at Meiser Park's new season is starting off with a bang, August 30th and 31st at 7.30 and 9pm. Comedian and actress Samorr takes a stage bringing her laugh-out loud style that his sold-out shows across the country. On September 1st at 5pm, Bo Griton Championship Wrestling makes his return to the studio featuring NWA Heavyweight Champion Tyrus as seen on Fox hit show Gutfield. WWE Hall of Famer Brutus, The Barber Beefcake, 7-foot giant Jack Talos, and many more of your favorite wrestling stars. September 7th at 6.30 and 8.30 pm, American Idol season two winner and Grammy-nominated singer Rubin Stutterd will perform live as part of the masterpiece tour. Tickets for these shows and more can be found at the studio at Meisterpark.com. On September 5th at 5 pm, the Boqueratton Museum of Art will host another of their Sunset Sounds concert series. This free event held in the courtyard outside the main entrance will feature the dueling accordions with a blend of French, German, Italian, Latin, Russian and tango sounds. Learn more about this concert at bokehamuseum.org. On September 8th at 9.30am, Leslie Glickman, who hosts the popular yoga and park program at San Born Square on Saturday mornings, will lead yoga in the museum at the Book Retone Museum of Art. This program will immerse patrons in Vinyasa Yoga surrounded by the beautiful and tranquil aesthetics of the museum. No experiences necessary, learn more at bokehamuseum.org. On September 27th at 6 p.m. Get your tickets now for the Book Retone Historical Society's annual toast, taste, and trolleys events. This end of summer celebration will feature a trolleys ride to downtown Boka and Bokertown restaurants and destinations such as Lissarelle, edivies, mere rosebud, and more. With light bites, historical trivia, a special toast, and fun to be had by all, get your tickets at bokeahistory.org. And finally, the Meiser Park Amphitheater is finalizing their fall season and it already looks amazing. With the Boke Retone Pump Compatch Festival on October 19th and 20th, the Red White and Boke Veterans Day celebration on November 11th, the official holiday tree lighting on November 23rd, OAR, and concert on November 16th. Then Symphonia Holiday Pops Concert on December 7th, which tickets are on sale now. And much more planned, there's something for everyone. Check in at Myzeramp.com over the next few weeks for even more events and concerts being added. Again, I'd like to thank my colleagues, Mr. Brown, Mr. Lucasic, Mr. Kailer, and all the staff for the input and information during today's discussion about the downtown. And I'd also like to thank everyone who came here today to speak and who emailed me. I reminder to visit downtownboka.org and to download the MyBoka app to keep up with all the happenings downtown or report concerns. And another reminder for any of you have not, who have not downloaded the circuit app, please do so catch a ride in the new Boca Connect circulator. We are getting great feedback and we hope to share some of the data in the next month or so. And of course if you have any ideas you'd like to share with me, please send me an email at fnaclas at my Boca.us or give me a call. I do love to hear from you and I will get back to you. With that and with no other business to come before us, this meeting is adjourned at 3, 12 PM.