City Council - Regular Meeting

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Okay, good afternoon everybody. Let's call this meeting to order. It's a regular meeting of Boca Raton's Community Redevelopment Agency. Today is Monday, February 23rd, 2026 and the time is 1:30 p.m. Please everyone rise 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 for all. Thank you very much. Miss Citens, please call the role. Chair Wter, here. Vice Chair Thompson, thankful to be here. Commissioner Ducker here. Commissioner Nlas here. Commissioner Singer

here. All present. Thank you very much, Mr. Sohaney. Are there any amendments to the agenda? Thank you, Mr. Chair. There are no amendments to the agenda. Mr. here. Yes. Thank you. May I speak about the agenda? Please do.

Thank you. It doesn't relate to this agenda here, but knowing that there are members of the public who might want to comment under public comment, I didn't want to wait until the workshop to bring this up. Tomorrow night, we have uh three ordinances, the second of two public hearings for ordinances 57, 71, 74, 75, and 76. Um all relating to downtown land development regulations. Um, at workshop I intend to have a conversation about potentially pushing those off to March because the uh potential vote on March 10th, maybe outcome determinative to some of these and there's no urgency to get it done now. I've had some conversations with our development partners too. They seem to be in agreement that we don't have to have these heard tomorrow night. So, I think having that conversation in March makes a little more sense. We'll have clarity one way or another and then see how to proceed. So, I wanted to mention that now in case anyone wanted to speak under public request saying that I thought we ought to bring it up now because we're going to have some other agenda items. They didn't have to wait if they came to say do exactly that. I'm suggesting that and we can have that conversation now. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

So, would you like to have the conversation now or workshop? If um I'm happy to have you chair and if if we're all we're all the same people, so I'm happy to do it now. We've already opened up the can.

That would be fine. And uh I'm happy to have that discussion. I actually agree. I think we should postpone those items. I think there's an opportunity to have more public input, more public outreach. Um there is some issues related to the live local act that my understanding is that could be clarified and we need to be very careful when it comes to the live local act that our ordinances are uh compliant. Uh and obviously um since this is supposed to be the readoption or the amendment to 4035 um having an opportunity for more public input would would have I'd absolutely appreciate it. So I think it's good. Anyone else? Miss Knox,

Mr. Wer, I thank you uh Mayor S. I also agree with waiting until after the election. I appreciate staff staying ahead of it and being responsible about it, but I think we need to just wait until after the election. Thank you, Mr. Yes. I had a conversation with Mr. Sohaney last week. We had emails that came from uh community etc etc. I'm okay to wait till after the election as well.

Okay. Happy to round us out and say yes. That was my thought as well. Not only because it could be outcome determinative on March 10th, but also I think it probably makes sense to have greater amount of public discussion and outreach envisioning as it relates to the non-government campus portion of those ordinances. And I wasn't aware of and couldn't see any real urgency to doing it now. And if the development partner is interested or not pushing to have it done now, it doesn't seem like they are. And if staff's not pushing to have it done now, it doesn't seem like they are. It makes all the sense in the world to push it off. So, I agree.

Okay. Very good. Well, that was our non-aggended item discussion. Um, Mr. Sahaney, are there any any other comments on that? No. Thank you. Uh, nothing else? No, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much. Um, are there any corrections to the minutes of February 9th, 2026? If not, I'll entertain a motion of approval. So moved. By Miss Knox. I hear a second. Second. Second by Mr. Singer. All in favor, please say

I. I thank you. There are no presentations today. So we will move on to quasi judicial and related public hearings for which there is one. Miss Citins, please read the title of resolution number CRP00002 R7 and take breaths if you need to. Yes. Resolution number CRP 0002R7, consideration of an individual development approval, IDA, of the city of Bocarone Community Redevelopment Agency, amending IDA number CRP0000002R6, which approved the Royal Palm Place Hotel Project, generally located on approximately 0.9 acres at 200 South Federal Highway and 75 Southeast 3rd Street, and incorporated the hotel into the existing Royal Palm place development generally located on approximately 14.48 acres inclusive of 13.9 acres at 194 Southeast 1st Avenue and approximately 0.58 acres of city rights of way abandoned with IDA number CRP00002R6 for a total property acreage of approximately 15.4 4 acres to one, reduce the number of hotel rooms from 144 to 137, a reduction of seven hotel rooms. Two, revise the previously approved hotel structure to remove belowgrade parking spaces, resulting in a reduction of square footage from approximately 163,000 I'm sorry, 167,360 ft to approximately 80,800 square ft. A reduction of approximately 86,560 ft. Three, increase the square footage of retail high from 11,284 ft to 11,295 ft. An increase of 11 square ft consisting of 6,810 square ft of restaurant, 1,840 ft of fast food, and

2,645 square ft of retail. Four, eliminate a public parking plaza containing 24 parking spaces and open space and replace it with the construction of a seven-story parking structure totaling 26,980 square ft including 10,77 square ft of retail high consisting of 8,045 ft of restaurant and 2,662 ft of retail on the ground level with a maximum height not to exceed 74t 9 in with architectural features with the maximum total height not to exceed 90 ft 3 in and to authorize public parking spaces within an existing parking structure located at 101 Plaza Rial South. And five, authorize other site improvements throughout the property together with the technical deviation from paragraph 24 B3 of the DDRI development order to reduce the required number of off- streetet parking spaces from 2,99 spaces to 1,417 spaces. a reduction of 682 spaces and from paragraph 24B4 to reduce the drive aisle width of a service parking spaces from 26 feet to 24 ft including a conversion of uses resulting in approximately 433,439 square ft of office equivalent development remaining in downtown sub area D providing for appealer providing an effective date.

Thank you very much. Now there'll have be a brief recess so Miss Citizens can catch her uh um catch your breath. Um Mr. Kaylor, please review the quasi judicial procedure that will govern this publication. Sure, Mr. Chair. And before I do, I will note for the board and for the public that the lengthy recitation by the clerk in part is a requirement of ordinance 4035. So that is part of the structure of this development order that covered all 344 acres. And so the the uh DDRI development order spells out what has to be in the notices. So I know staff is looking at that uh or maybe looking at it because it is a little more than you would typically see in a in a development order.

Thank you. Um, in accordance with the rules, each applicant requesting approval, relief, or other action from the CRA this afternoon shall disclose at the commencement or continuence of the public hearing any consideration provided or committed directly or on its behalf for an agreement to support or withhold objection to the requested relief or action. A summary of the quasi judicial procedures governing this proceeding is attached to the agenda and a copy can be obtained from the city clerk. Very good. Thank you. Uh, and members, if you have any exparte disclosures not already disclosed, please state so now. Mr. Thompson,

I had a conversation about an hour ago with Ellie Zacharitus, who's council for the applicant, regarding the application, specifically the removal of the underground parking, the addition of a parking garage, and the retooling of some of the parking lots. I'm pretty sure I had conversations going back many years, probably to 20 or 21, 2022 maybe about the original application for this hotel. I met with the applicant to discuss that, but that was going back many years and it didn't relate to this amendment. I think that concludes my exparty disclosures. Thank you, Miss Knolas.

Thank you, chair. Yes, I also had a discussion with council for the applicant Ellie Zacharitas today. Also watched PNZ meeting. have driven by the site many times and I'm sure it's probably come up with Mr. Basian somewhere along the line um but I can't recall a specific date. Thank you very much, Mr. Rucker.

Yes, thank you. Uh last week I had a brief conversation on the project, what why it was approved. I was on the council in 2022 and I voted for this project in the original form. Uh, so I had a conversation with a PNZ member, Dorothy McDermott, who wanted just education about this particular project and had a few questions for me. I had a I had a conversation and as Mr. Thompson noted, I was already on the council myself. So, I've had on the original proposal and and approval, I've had conversations with Mr. Betasian, Ellie Zacharitis, and many residents at that point that were disclosed previously. Uh this morning I had a Zoom meeting with Ellie Zacharitas and of course we received some resident emails that have come to our city email and it's uh part of the records. Thank you. Thank you very much Mr. Singer.

In addition to what's already in the record several weeks ago I had a conversation with Armen Badmasian representative of the applicant concerning the underground parking and parking structure. At some point in the past 3 years, I've had a conversation with Miss Zacharitas, attorney for the applicant, about the pendency and progress of this application since it was approved in 2022. Thank you. Thank you very much. And myself, I have already previously disclosed um my exparte communications with the clerk, but in addition, I did have one previous conversation last week with Miss Zakaritis also generally about the project and the um and the changes. Okay. Um, any person wishing to speak now, please stand while the clerk administers the oath.

Please raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm that any testimony you may give before this public hearing will be truthful and accurate? Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Saney. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Development services director, Mr. Shad, and senior planner, Miss Leser will make the presentation.

Very good. Thank you, Mr. Sohaney, Chair Wter, members of the board. Susan Leser, senior planner. The item before you is an amendment to the Royal Palm Place Hotel Individual Development Approval or IDA located at 200 South Federal Highway, 194 Southeast 1st Avenue, and 75 Southeast Third Avenue. The handout you receive for the IDA has a strike through and underline with shading. And the number of provided parking has not changed. The number of required parking has changed to 1,95 based on a reduction of a total of 488 spaces. It's the calculation of what is required that has changed. And this change is reflected on pages 2, four, and five. Uh the applicant is requesting an amendment to reduce the number of hotel rooms by seven to 137 hotel rooms and a reduction of approximately 1,000 square ft. There's a nominal uh reduct increase in retail and approximately 7,100 square ft increase in open space. Uh the the um size of the hotel parking structure will be reduced. That's a reduction of about 86,000 square feet and that is due to the elimination of the below ground parking. A 24 parking space plaza will be replaced with the proposed parking structure that'll be at seven stories and restaurant and use retail uses will be provided on the ground floor. request a technical deviation to reduce the amount of required parking by using a shared parking analysis and that results in a reduction of 488 spaces. There's also a second technical deviation to

reduce the minimum required drive width of certain parking spaces that are on the surface from 26 to 24 ft. And lastly, the application includes a conversion of uses in downtown sub area D. Miss Meser, let me just pause there for a second. Um, because this is an amendment to a project that's not yet built. Um, why is there a reduction of 488 spaces? Is that because now we're going through the whole site plan? We're incorporating this into the whole site plan. Is that why we're talking about reductions here? Brand the chat development services director. So, this is the application that the applicant has made and this is what we're responding to. So, that's the reason that we're talking about a reduction. So there was previously before the prior approval there was an existing nonconformity existing deficiency under the code of required parking. Um so now they're asking for a reduction from what the uh overall new requirement is and that's why we're talking about this.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir. I'm sorry. May I follow up with a question because I I'm trying to I I had a similar conversation with Miss Leser and Mr. Shad beforehand. Could you just give a little more background here? You could you talk Mr. Shad about the existing site we're all familiar with it built in the 1960s and the overall reduction because what's now being proposed is an increase over what was approved in 2022 and a decrease of the deficit that has existed for decades. Could you could you just put some context there and maybe you're going to but seems like it would fit in here.

So I can do that. Um I do understand that the applicant intends to address this issue at least in part in their presentation. So, if I could suggest that maybe we do that and then we can come back and discuss it afterwards, I'm happy to do it, but I'm suggesting that we let the applicant address it first. Oh, okay. Because the way you made it sound, it's like that's what the applicant presented, not any of the any any of the flavor there. I just meant that that's the application that they've made and that's that's why we're talking about a technical, right? It's always the application the applicant has made. That's the definition. So, there was a weird couching here that we didn't discuss. So I'm a little I just I thought some context would help now.

Okay. So I will try to go through it. Um so back in 2022 for the approval um the basically the parking requirement for the entirety of Royal Palm Place plus the hotel parcel. Now prior to that approval, the hotel parcel was not part of it. Right? So that is an addition of land um and then an addition of a hotel on top of the existing development. So the parking requirement by code of that uh was 1,750 spaces. Um there was 1,266 that were provided. Now, as I was saying, there was the the hotel itself at the time uh provided all of the parking that was required under the code for that new use, but the existing plaza prior to that approval excluding the hotel already had a deficiency. Okay, there was already it did not meet the code at the time. So that deficiency through that application was being reduced in the amount of and I want to make sure I get this right about 140 spaces. They were improving the deficiency. So now we have a new application um that is again amending the 22 approval and they are asking for a technical deviation. Um, and the primary reason that they're asking for that reduction is to allow for um, future tenant changes that might shift the parking required in their various retail spaces and things like that without having to come back to uh, the CRA to get a change when they might want to put a new tenant in that requires somewhat more parking than the old tenant. they go from retail to a restaurant, for

example, rather than coming back to the CRA for that, however many months that process would take for a simple tenant change out, that's the primary reason for the deviation that they're asking for. Um, does that help? It does, but this current application would further improve the number of net spaces. Is that fair? Yes. All right. Thank you. That's that's the point. Thank you. Right. And and I guess just to just to clarify again because the property was built in the 1960s or 1970s, obviously the code that was in place at that time is different from our current code and and that's why it's you're saying it started out with a deficiency is because of those reasons. Is that right? That's right. Yes. Thank you. Right. Thanks very much.

And Mr. Chair, board members, there is a provision under ordinance 4035 that's directly on point. It's called non-conforming standards. And so I don't know if staff can can talk to about it, but generally the it's acknowledging again legacy uh improvements pre-DRI and then it's looking at are you improving the issue? Are you are you address are you making it better rather than making it worse,

right? Thank you. Thanks very much, Miss Leser. Please thank you. The original IDA approval in 2022 authorized the construction of a 12-story hotel with restaurant and retail uses on the approximately 0.9 acre property at 200 South Federal Highway and 75 Southeast 3rd Street. It combined Royal Palm Place and existing approximately 13.9 acre shopping center located at 194 Southeast 1st Avenue, which is currently separated from the hotel by Southeast First Avenue and Southeast 3rd Street. The approval also included the abandonment of four city portions of Rightway and that totaled 0.58 acres. Together, the hotel parcel, the Royal Palm Place parcel, and the rightway abandonment area constitute the approximately 15.4 acre property located in the DDRI zoning district in downtown sub area D with a future lanyard designation of CBD. The hotel is location is called out in blue and the proposed parking structure is hatched in purple. This is the overall site plan and the hotel location as you can see remains unchanged at the western portion of the property uh directly east of Federal Highway between Southeast Third and Second Streets. The proposed parking structure is located in the interior of the property directly east of the hotel and other site improvements are proposed including the elimination of the existing fountain uh located at the northernmost ingress egress along southeast Meisner Boulevard. Um and that the applicant is now proposing a modified entryway in addition to the existing right in

right out lanes. An additional right out lane right out lane is also proposed. The existing triangular parking lot to the southeast of the hotel will also be improved and a permit has been issued as its scope of work does not require an IDA approval. As part of this application, the applicant has agreed to improve the alignment of the existing 8ft wide crosswalk located at the northwestern corner of the intersection of Southeast 1st Avenue and Southeast 2nd Street. Currently, the existing crosswalk is substandard and it needs to be realigned to be perpendicular with each corner of the street with the exception of the ingress and egress along Meisner Boulevard. Vehicular access to the property south from South Federal Highway, Southeast 2nd and third streets all will remain unchanged. This is the previously approved site plan and the hotel was approved um as we mentioned earlier with 144 rooms as a 12-story building with restaurant and um retail uses on the ground floor. A total of 408 internal structured parking spaces were provided. Also, an improved plaza with 24 parking spaces was located where the proposed parking structure is intended to be re intended to be located. uh and the retail building um in its place. Since the previous approval, uh there is a reduction in daily trips from 1,920 daily trips to 1,12 daily trips. The hotel um as mentioned will provide 137 rooms totaling 241,65 ft. And due to the proposed modifications, the lower level of parking has been eliminated. Therefore, uh it contains 205 parking spaces with a total of 11,295

square feet of restaurant and retail uses. This consists of 6,810 ft of restaurant, 1,840 ft of fast food, and 2,645 ft of retail. Additionally, 1,125 ft of outdoor restaurant and 175 square ft of outdoor fast food seating are also proposed. Restaurant uses um for both buildings are called out in purple and the retail is in blue. The existing ingress egress to the via Naranas internal drive will be improved and that's from an exist existing depth of approximately 7 ft to 62 feet. Plaza Real South is proposed to be extended connecting to Southeast Third Street near the southeast corner of the parking structure and retail building. This modification, as you can see, results in improved connectivity throughout the entire property. And as requested by staff, the drive width at the entrance of the hotel of structure parking along Southeast 1st Avenue will be reduced from 24 ft to 20 ft in width, as well as a portion of the east west via Nuron House Internal Drive. Uh the sevenstory parking structure totals 26,980 ft with 501 parking spaces, 8,45 ft of restaurant and 2,662 ft of retail. All proposed on the ground floor. The maximum height of the building will be 74t 9 in with additional architectural tower features not to exceed a height of 90 ft 3 in. The sidewalk surrounding the parking structure and retail building does vary in width uh from approximately 4 feet 8 inches to um 8 feet in width and a pedestrian bridge will connect the hotel to the second level of the parking structure and retail building. The upper levels of the parking structure will be dedicated to valet and um that's for

also for hotel guests, employees and patrons of the plaza. Um, as you can see to the um, east there is a new plaza proposed that'll be approximately 6,000 square feet and that's located adjacent to southeast Mosner Boulevard directly south of the improved ingress and egress. The required blended open space for a multiple building site with different heights including the existing existing raw palm place and the hotel parcel is 30.56% and 31.77% is provided as open space and up to 35% of the total provided open space may be covered and um that includes arcades and colonades and the project provides 29.2% 2% of covered open space. Overall, since the previous approval, the open space has increased by approximately 7,000 square ft. Uh, as I mentioned, the applicant is seeking a technical deviation from the DDRI development order, paragraph 24B3, to reduce the number of required off- streetet parking spaces. Pursuant to the code using a shared an shared parking analysis a total of 1,95 parking spaces are required and using the applicant's proposed alternate rates, 1417 parking spaces are provided. The difference between the code requirement and the proposed alternative rates equates to a reduction of 488 parking spaces. staff supports the request to use these alternative rates. As the previous approval improved the overall existing parking deficit, the proposed hotel redevelopment, including the new parking structure, will now eliminate that parking deficit. Regarding the second technical deviation pursuant to section 24B4,

each required parking space shall have a minimum width of 9 feet and a minimum length of 18 feet with a 26 ft aisle for 90 degree parking as 24 as a 24 foot drive aisle is provided on the reconfigured triangular lot. Uh the traffic division has no objections to this request based on the fact that the request is limited to that existing triangular lot that is will be improved. Room for expansion is is limited and the reduced drive aisle can provide a few more parking spaces and uh lastly the dimension is acceptable to the city's engineering design standards manual. This is the west elevation of the hotel um that faces south federal highway. The hotel was approved pursuant to and continues to be governed by the interim design guidelines or the IDG which includes alternative requirements for architectural elements such as setbacks, building height, massing as well as articulation. The goal is to create a greater architectural variety and interest, but with no greater building volume than would be possible under the nonIDG regulations of the development order. The hotel is consistent with the 2022 approval and continues to conform um to the required standards. This is the east elevation and the north elevation. And due to the removal of the below grade parking entrance with a basement ramp, changes to this elevation also include architectural details including balconies. The north and south elevations of the parking structure retail building. And these are uh renderings provided by the applicant. Uh they show the proposed

hotel and the uh parking and retail building. The hotel faces west and the parking structure shows views from the southwest above including the pedestrian bridge and from the southeast below. On August 5th, 2025, the project went before the community appearance board for a formal recommendation to the CRA and the board reviewed the project and recommended approval. The vote was 6-0 with conditions relating specifically to the parking structure and retail building. It should be noted that the applicant has agreed to these conditions and they include the in to increase the height of the crate myrtles from a minimum of 12 feet to 16 ft. increase the number of Montgomery palms and increase the number of Alexander palms to be planted on the north side of the proposed building. On February 19th, uh the project went before the uh planning and zoning board and the board recommended approval and the vote was 70. Um at the meeting there was discussion by some of the board members about the timing as well as permit issuance for both buildings and uh staff did have this condition number seven included in the IDA and the proposed hotel and parking structure as well as retail uses are consistent and compatible with adjacent land uses. The project complies with ordinance number 4035 and therefore the development services department recommends approval of the application. The city's urban design consultant completes city's planning group review the project as well and also found it to be consistent with ordinance 4035. And that concludes my presentation. I'd be happy to respond to any questions you may have.

Thank you, Miss Leser. Thank you. Commissioners, any questions on this side? Mr. Mr. Chairman, can I add something?

Yes, sir. I should have said before, and I apologize. Um to be more clear about the the parking, um with the 2022 approval, the requirement for parking was 1,946 and with the change in the uses with this application, the requirement has actually been reduced to 1,95. At the same time, the number of provided spaces is going up from 1,239 to 1480. So, the change of uses is reducing the amount of demand and the supply is going up. So, I just that wasn't clear enough. I want to make that more clear.

Yeah, that that is what we understood. Yes. Yes. Anything else? Okay. Seeing none, we'll open the public hearing and allow the petitioner first to speak. You'll have up to 20 minutes. Miss Zacharitus, welcome. Please state your name and address for the record.

Good afternoon. Ellie Zacharitas, 14 Southeast 4 Street. Thank you, Susan, for your very thorough presentation. I'll try to be brief. Um, obviously this is Royal Palm Place. We all know it very well. It's a total of 15.4 acres. The areas colored in green, yellow, purple, and orange is what I'll call the affected area. We will go through each of them individually, starting with the hotel as number one. This is what exists there today. Um, let me start a little bit at the 30,000 ft level. As Susan noted, and you all are aware, this is an already approved hotel. It was approved in 2022. Um, with the approved hotel, there was parking above ground where the hotel wrapped around that parking structure, but there was also a two and a half floor of floors of underground parking. Um, as you're probably aware, construction costs have gone astronomical since CO um making those two and a half levels of underground parking economically infeasible, which is really why we're here today. If we're going to remove the underground parking, which is our proposal, we have to find parking elsewhere. Um, so that's where the the standalone parking garage is proposed, and I'll get into that in more detail. Um, so other than the removal of the underground parking, the only other minor substantive change is the reduction of seven hotel units. We went from 144 to 137. That is a direct result of construction drawings and preparing. Once you get into the construction drawing phase, things shift. We needed some more back of house type of areas. Uh so some rooms were eliminated during that process. There were abandonments

and easements that were part of the previous approval. Those are alive and well as is the previous approval. Uh this is to put it in context. Obviously the hotel is here. This is federal highway. This is the proposed garage which we'll get into next. And then this is that triangle lot just to orient how everything works together. Uh again the hotel is 137 rooms uh a reduction from 144. We are proposing 205 parking spaces for the hotel on this hotel property and over 10,000 square ft of retail and restaurant. I will tell you that what I've always loved about this development is it is the only development I am aware of that provides a minimum of 26 ft all around the building that is part of a public use easement. This is the hotel facade rendering facing east. It's the internal to Royal Palm Place. Uh this is what would be visible from Federal Highway. This is the west facade and so on. Okay, so that was the hotel. Now we're going to get into the garage. Um, again to orient you, this is the hotel location. Um, in order to make way for the proposed garage, two existing buildings that were not pre part of the previous application are now being proposed to be demolished. And this is give or take the footprint of the proposed garage. So those two buildings are total almost 9,000 square feet that would be demolished and we would be replacing it with 10,77 square ft of retail and restaurant. The parking garage will be seven stories. The entire first floor is is allocated to those vibrant commercial uses. The

parking begins on the second floor and goes up to the seventh floor. Mr. Chair. Yes, sir. Miss Acaritus. Yes. Uh, could you go back one slide, please? Just slowly. I wanted to because the the angle shifted now. Go forward, please.

Back one more time, please. Yeah, it's unfortunate that these are not in the same north south. on this before you get to the next one. Does the parking garage Does the eastern edge of the parking garage line up roughly with the eastern edge of the apartment building? This is the eastern edge of the parking garage. Okay. The apartment the existing apartment building is here. And what's going to happen to the building to the immediately east immediately east of Yep. that one.

Um there there's a vast walkway between the two buildings in the proposed plan and there's also some green space that's being incorporated and expanded on the north side. Could you go forward now on one side, please? East is to the top on this picture. North is to the left. So, right. So, there I see I'm sorry. If east is to the top, then why don't I see the building immediately a top the garage? So this

this is the edge of our garage. So this drive aisle uh Mayor Singer is actually covered. There's the garage goes on top of that.

Okay. Thank you. Um, so we are proposing 501 parking spaces in this proposed garage. As I previously noted, there will be 205 in the hotel proper. So that is 706 parking spaces in total. Um, and as I previously noted, there's over 10,000 square ft, almost 11,000 ft of retail and restaurant. These are some elevations. As Susan noted, there would be a pedestrian connection on the second floor of the garage that would connect to the second floor of the hotel. This is the north facade. So, this is what we call RPP1, which houses Lemongrass and Chops. And we're just heading east during these renderings. We're kind of wrapping around the building. This would be the east facade. Again, this is still the north facade. Mr. Singer. This kind of makes it a little clearer. So, this driveway is covered by the overhead garage and then there's walkways here, a covered colonade and an open air. And then the building proper to the east starts right here. Okay. So, that was the garage. Now, we're going to go to the last two, neither of which are required as part of this application, but we did think it was prudent and important to, again, as Mr. Shad said, we're constantly trying to fix nonconformities every time we submit for an application. We are not required to fix all the nonconformities, as Mr. Keeler noted. We're just required to not make it worse and hopefully make it better, uh, which is our goal here. So this parking lot I call it the triangle lot. You all know it well. We

all know it well. Uh it is very non-conforming as to well pretty much everything. Uh and it doesn't function very well. So what we are proposing since we are utilizing this triangle lot for underground drainage. There's going to be work done anyway. Why not try to bring it to conformity and beautify it as much as possible? So, this lot, I can't remember if we're losing about 15 or 18 spaces in total, but it will still house 101 parking spaces. And then last but not least, before I get into the parking conversation, is the reconfiguration of this entryway. So, this is has always been a concern of mine as there's a very vast curb cut here. This is a parking space. This is a parking space. People could be pulling in while somebody is pulling out. It has a lot of conflict points. Uh all of these parking spaces are non-conforming as are these. So what we are proposing is to prepare a aesthetically beautiful landscape island that will also serve as safety. Remove the fountain, remove these parking spaces and remove these parking spaces and create a plaza. And this is what we are proposing. I got the the direction correct on this one, Mayor Singer. Okay. So, now let's talk about parking a little bit. And you all have heard me say this and I'll I'll probably say it a thousand more times. In my humble opinion, we need to decide as a city what we want our downtown to be when we grow up. Do we want it to be a true urban center or do we want to continue to have it be suburbia? Today's code is based on something

that's over 40 years old. So, this column here is what code required parking, today's ordinance 4035 would require for this proposed development. The column just to its right is what we're calling our alternative parking plan which would require 248 spaces. The big differential, the biggest differential is in restaurants. This is what we are proposing which is one parking space per three seats. We did not make that up out of whole cloth. that actually is currently applied on all properties that were annexed from the county into the city. By way of example, restaurant row, which I love and frequent more often than I'd like to admit, but restaurant row is subject to Palm Beach County's ULDC regulations from 2002. already archaic in and of themselves, but significantly less than what our downtown would require for parking. So that is what we we're proposing to implement and that really is the biggest chunk of the differential. This additional column is if the government center regulations were approved and if as drafted and if we were proposing to build this at the government center, this would be the required parking. This last column is the city of West Palm Beach downtown's code. I do not want to be West Palm Beach. I want to be so much better than West Palm Beach. But they are a true downtown with a true urban core and they park accordingly. If we were to propose this development in downtown West Palm, we would require 86 parking spaces. I am not asking to park it at 86. I'm just

letting you know that these are our neighbors that have embraced a true urban center. um staff has reviewed and approved or recommended approval as to the application. I was going to stop my presentation there, but I do think it appears that there are some significant questions about parking. So, let me go past my kill slide. Um, first and foremost, I think it is really important to note that the block that we are proposing to demolish to make way for the hotel has 13,094 square ft. Those 13,094 square ft based on today's code would trigger a 221 parking space requirement. However, there are only 15 parking spaces servicing that entire block. Therefore, by demolishing all 13,094 square ft, we are removing right off the top a 26 parking space deficit just by demolishing those spaces. Then, and Mayor Singer, this may answer your questions a little bit better. This column here shows what code required parking would be. If you look at the bottom, and I can't read it from here, but I want to say that number is 324.

That's right.

That is the amount of the deficit we are removing from Royal Palm with our proposed development based on today's code. However, you would still have a deficit of I think that number is 419. Um, based on today's code, as Mr. Shad noted, our alternative plan, which is here, gives the applicant or the property owner some wiggle room to switch out tenants. Um we are reducing in this alternative plan we are reducing the deficit by 450 parking spaces and we are providing therefore eliminating the deficit in its entirety and providing a surplus of 69 spaces. I know that was a windfall. That was a that was very complicated. So obviously we're here to answer any questions and this is more of a simpler form to show you how we're getting to that 415 parking space deficit reduction. So one more thing and planning and zoning. There was a question and I didn't have the opportunity to come back and and answer the question from a a neighboring property owner. There was a question about the removal of the park plaza that was previously part of our plan which is this was part of the approved plan. There is this little plaza in here. Obviously, we are removing that, but I do want to say for the record, we are providing those the other plazas throughout, as I previously noted at the entrance and throughout the site, and we now have more than 7,000 additional square feet of open space than we did on the approved plan. So, with that, I'll go back to my question side. We're here to answer any questions you may have. My entire team is here.

Thank you very much, commissioners. Any questions? I'll start with one um that's not not on any of the slides. We've talked about this at length over the past several years. Missaritis, um this is an existing plaza. It's occupied. It's functioning. There's businesses there. There's going to be businesses there. Can you talk briefly or have the applicant talk briefly about the sequencing of the construction to minimize disruption to obviously the businesses and to the surrounding um surrounding community because I know the sequencing here is very specific. Yeah.

Sure. Yes. And this has been a topic of conversations for us on this side of the aisle as well. Um, we would like to start first and foremost with this triangle lot. Um, we would like to start that in the summer months when it is slower and have this be brought up online before we do anything else. So, in my mind, it's not really phase, but let's call it phase. This is going to be phase one. Simultaneous to that, we're looking to demolish where the hotel will be. Um, we haven't gotten to the staging areas yet, but we expect that may be part of our staging area where the hotel is. Um, as planning and zoning requested, they would like us to start construction on the garage before starting construction on the hotel. And I agreed to that because that's exactly what we want to do. We want to make sure those parking spaces are online before we have a 137 room hotel. So phase one is demolition of the hotel and the triangle lot reconfiguration with drainage underneath. Phase two is going to be the parking structure. Um it's tilt construction, so we're hoping around four to five months after we start here, we will then start the hotel. This should take about 18 months, 12 to 18 months to construct. 12 months to construct the parking garage where the hotel will take approximately 18 months.

Thank you very much. And Mr. Shad, just to confirm, are are uh is the development services team? Are we are we okay with this sequencing? Let's call it. Yes. Um it's actually we have a condition about this. It's important that the parking struct we make sure the parking structure gets constructed if the hotel is going to be constructed. So, we're actually requiring the parking structure be started before the hotel is started because that that the hotel depends on that parking. Right. Right. Thank you very much. Uh, commissioners, any other questions? Miss,

thank you. Thank you, Miss Acaritus, and thank you for uh pointing out the change in the park space, the green space, because I'm sure Miss Rambo appreciates that you address that. Um I had also asked you and I think it's either on Southeast First A or Via Nuranas about if there was parallel parking on one of those um streets.

So today there is parallel parking abuing RPP1 on the south side. I believe there are seven spaces. uh we are trying to align this street instead it kind of meanders significantly and not in a smooth fashion. So we're trying to straighten that out. So we are removing those seven parallel parking spaces in its entirety. So there will not be any parallel spaces around here. And that's also the street that is being reduced from 24 feet down to 20 feet. That's correct. And I heard Mr. brand. Uh, Mr. Shad had said that's to improve walkability around there. Is that correct?

Confirmed. Okay. Um, one question I had about was the sidewalks around the parking garage. I heard it went from four 4 feet 8 in to 8 feet. And is that correct? I don't know that. I'm going to have to defer. And I just wanted to um make sure that the wider sidewalks are on the side where the restaurant and retail are because that's on the north side. I I would want to say yes, but I'm on the record, so let me defer to our architect on that one. Ian Nestler would be coming up. I like the bridge connecting um the hotel to the parking as well.

Thank you very much, Ian Nestler. Uh 11360 Cherry Canyon Court in Boon Beach. Um the the width of the parking uh of the pedestrian way or the sidewalks around the garage are fairly generous, but there are columns that come down from the garage that hold the garage up above and at pinch points where we have that those columns basically every 30 36 feet on center there's a pinch point there that takes you down to 4'8 in. Okay. So otherwise there's green space between it's not it's not continuous along there. just pinch points and we have dining within as well set in as well. Okay.

Along that street. You got it. Thank you. Anything else? Seeing none, we'll open up the Mr. Chair. How many spaces you mentioned? A couple of reductions in service parking. Do you have a total number of What's the total number of service spaces being reduced? How many are we rem taking offline? Correct.

116 if memory serves. Let me go to that slide. If I'm right, if it was 116, I'm going to be impressed with myself. Sorry. 116. And that's right here. Just give me a moment while I'm looking at all of this, please. Where are they coming from? I cuz I it's seven along the parallel about 20 something on the east side of the property. The triangular lot was about 15. There's some around the garden of humanity. Is that where they're really coming from?

Yeah. So there's a these parking spaces here, these parking spaces here, these parking spaces here. That's right. When you go there, is it just the southernmost? You circled like six spots. Is it that entire row north of the fountain? All of these spaces are gone. All of these spaces are gone. A few of these spaces are gone. So that's like 24 call it.

Yeah. Um there are the parallel spaces that Miss Nacklas brought up are are being removed. There's a reduction in parking at the triangle lot itself. Uh Kristen is that pretty much sums it up. Right where, excuse me, right where it says parking structure area of development, there are 35 parking spaces right there that are being removed where the where it's sitting where the parking structure is sitting on top of that. Those are three little dead end parking spots or parking structure areas right in there. And is the balance in the green area on the retail that's on federal highway now?

I'm sorry, say that again. is the balance of the remainder of the remaining parking spaces. Are they in the what was 10 slides ago the green area that's being the the site of the hotel? There's surface parking there. It looks like that's got to be got to be the only place for it. Correct. That's that's that's where that is primarily. There are the 15 spaces that Miss mentioned earlier. That's in the hotel site as well. Thank you. Misser, did your colleague have something to say or No, just have a Thank you. drawing here that basically points that center area. All right, I got a question. I won't word it as worded 90 years ago. Oh, the humanity. What's happening to the garden of humanity?

It remains intact. It remains intact.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Um, just one more question. Can you go back to that plaza, the new plaza that's on the very east side? Because the drive aisle is going to get changed or aligned right there. My recollection is that with the parking that's being eliminated there, there was also a drive aisle to loop all the way around. Uh was there not? There used to be a drive aisle that looped all the way around to go south uh to loop back into the plaza. So obviously now that we're turning it into a public plaza, I guess that um that's not necessary anymore. How are they connecting to the south?

Yes. So it's going to be stopped right here, Chair Wictor. So you're not going to be able to move further south. There won't be vehicular access south of that. Yeah, there is access and that takes you even further south. Yes, please. He's asking about that little loop with the five spaces. I can't hear what he's saying. Hold on one second. He's He's asking about this drive aisle. Can you continue to vehicular drive? No, it's a plaza now. Right. From there, you can't drive further. From there, you cannot drive further south. Correct. But there is another access point just south of this slide that takes you down and continues to loop you around. And that was the question. Yes. Yes.

Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Sorry, Mr. Chair. Follow on that. Why Why not contain why not have a drive aisle that goes all the way through even if you eliminated the parking spaces there?

So, we thought personally that it would be better suited to have a true plaza instead of yet another vehicular driveway. Um, we think this is a better asset to the redevelopment than pavement. Okay. Uh, one more question about the design for the parking garage is more it's miser but it's a little more contemporary. It doesn't quite match Royal Palm Place One or the hotel. Could you describe the differences in styles? It almost looks more like the Alina buildings. Um, so it it does reflect a little bit of that symmetry with the with the pergolas. Um, but could you elaborate on the style choice there, please?

I'll defer to the architect on that one. Thank you again, Ellie. Thank you very much and for the question. So, there is a um a slight uh I'd call it uh it's not really an adjustment, but there is there's a slight nod to the uh other developments that are happening in the downtown bokeh area right now that are not as misneresque as the plaza is. And we wanted to make sure we were capturing uh the colors, the materials, and some of the framework of the hotel that we had designed. But we also wanted to make sure that we were capturing some of the other more contemporary versions that were around the uh around downtown Bokeh.

How do you think it harmonizes with the 1960s buildings that are going to remain on site? We think the we think the entire plaza is beautiful. Uh it's a beautiful place to be at the ground level at the pedestrian realm. And at the pedestrian realm, both the hotel and the garage have that type of a feeling. And as we get up a little bit higher into the skyline, we're starting to see a little bit more contemporary uh a little bit more contemporary feel on the garage. So we think it harmonizes very well. And can you just Mr. Nestler talk about those pinch points you mentioned. Talk about the necessity. I I this is not my area of expertise. So please elucidate where the pinch point why the pinch points on the garage to go down to four 4t 8 in or whatever it was.

Okay. to make a uh to make an efficient garage that can park as many cars as possible. We don't have the flexibility we do with a retail building or something else. So, garage drive aisles, parking spaces, and all are dictated by code and by good standard practice. So, the width of the garage has to be a certain dimension. There was only a certain dimension that was available on the site without getting into things like the garden of humanity, for instance. Uh so we elected to uh remove some of that parking, those seven parallel parking spaces that were on the um on the north side of Nuranchas and uh we also uh asked for that variation in width in parking width so that we could get that extra couple of feet and we made uh the space as much as available for the pedestrians at the ground level. So if we looked at the ground level parking I'm not sure which one this shots show the parking level ground level but parking garage ground level plans maybe or the plan would be probably good. There you go. Oops. Next one. Next slide. Bigger slide. Yeah. No,

no, that's it.

Yeah, that's it. Okay. So on the um you can see the garage. So on the left side of the garage, there's some restaurant and retail spaces shown. On the right side, there's some utilities and and the ramp that takes you up to the second level. And you can see we have some cutouts in the garage uh that are meant for open space dining. And uh in between the open space dining areas, those two cutouts, we have uh walkways, pedestrian walkways that are undercover. So they're underneath essentially an arcade, if you will. And then from the edge of the arcade to the street is the is the 4'8 in. And so when we talk about pinch points, we're only really talking about areas that we're going to have planted anyway. Otherwise, we're walking really under under an arcade, the entire north side essentially of the garage.

Are there any chairs or tables for the restaurants that will impede the egress and ingress in the arcade?

Not expected to be. So, we are keeping those and that's why we've created such deep wells, if you will, into the into the restaurants to allow for nice uh outdoor space and and those dining areas now talk to uh the restaurant that's directly across the street as well because they have an outdoor space that looks out onto the Nurantas as well. And so now you have uh what was before just parking, now you have a retail carter with only a 20- foot wide driveway essentially that really connects the pedestrians on both the north and the south sides of those streets. So that was a really strong uh component of the implementation of this garage.

All right. So if it's 4 feet 8 in I don't know whatever um that's open to sky as part of this pedestrian via how much is the total width whether open to the sky or under the overhang. Uh well it varies as you can see it goes in and out but the area that's the deepest is where you got that and the shallowest please. And the shallowest. Yes. We'll have we'll have that for you in just a second. We'll get you an exact on that. Oh, wait. I don't know. Oh,

it's another 11 like here is it's like seven seven and a half here. I didn't mean to pop quiz. So, if you want to we can have public comment and come back. Yeah. So it it's a at the narrowest it's about 7 7 and 1/2 ft at the narrowest points between the column and the building face itself and then there's another about 15t deep dining area if you will that recesses into the into the building. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Anything else?

All right. Seeing none, we will open up the public hearing. Uh I have some cards. They're not specific, but Richard Warner specifically talked about this item. Mr. Warner, welcome.

Richard Warner, 1322 Southwest 9th Terrace. This is more fun than charades, and it's kind of a charade. This will continue the pattern of destroying what charm bokeh used to have and turn it into a mundane place like everywhere else. And it's a good thing that we have an amusement park and an F1 racing circuit and everything that'll have people coming like mad to stay in these hotels and go to these stores and restaurants. But the truth is we don't we don't have any real reason why people should want to come here and stay in all these hotels you're proposing. I it confuses me. We don't have Africa USA. If we did maybe people would be coming here to ride that tram. I did when I was about six years old and I still remember it. But we don't even have that. Why? We don't have full occupancy in hotels that exist. Why are we building? Why do we want to add a sevenstory parking garage to our skyline? I understand it's private land. There's not a heck of a lot you can do to stop people from developing it. I guess I'm just making a a comment that uh it's atrocious. What what's happened

to the town I moved to in the 70s is disgusting. I don't know what a better word. And you guys seem to be pushing more of it. And I don't understand. It's, you know, I do have to say I agree. We should not be having those three things brought up tomorrow night. And why we've done all the things we've done before March 10th, I still don't get. But back to this, like I said, I wish someone would explain why people will stay in these hotels. We're not Worth Avenue. We're not going to be. We don't have that much public beach and it's not really public. Why are people going to come and do this? What's the the rationale? Please guys, explain to me.

Thank you, Mr. Warner. This public comment, can I can I make a statement? Sure.

Thank you, Mr. Warner, for this comment, too. Just want to go down a little bit of history lane on what this project came before us. So this project was approved um with an option. The rooms the rooms on this hotel are bigger than just normal hotels. And we had approved the project with options. And one of the options that was appealing to me back in 2022 was the extended stay option. Extended stay option for not only visitors because we do have people that visit Bokeh. So I disagree that we don't have folks coming to visit us. We do have visitors that come for long periods of time during the summer. But we also had talked about visiting nurses. We had talked about FAU research professors, people that couldn't find housing because unfortunately we have a housing crisis in Boca Raton. Whether you agree with me or not, that is a fact. Affordable housing as well. So even to take it a step further, workforce housing. So when this was approved these units and we were very clear with the applicant that we didn't want extra residential there that there was a need there was a need for a hotel that was not the Boca Raton which we all love but we can't all afford or the water stone or there's there's only the Hyatt and we wanted more options for our consumers for our residents for people visiting and for people coming here and even just checking out corporations. So we had a long discussion. You could go back to that meeting, but I think that gives a little bit of clarity on the past as to why there was approved there. That is why we approved that and why we approved a hotel in that particular space. And for me, it was a connectivity to Royal Palm Place that was really, really important because it is a plaza that people really frequent to. And if you are listening to all of our conversations in the past, we've also had a lot of discussion how we could help get Miser Park connected to Royal Palace with the autonomous vehicles and making it a true walkable urban downtown. So that is why that was approved the way that it was. I disagree with you that is not going to be

charming that it's not going to it takes away from us. It's there. That was approved in 2022. The approval happened and before that we had other buildings that were already in downtown. So, I just wanted to give a little bit of that history. I also just wanted to give on that note, um, the different buildings and the architecture. Um, I agree it goes away from Meiser Park, but you you don't want to see is Alina one way and then Royal Palm another way. You kind of want to mix and match. And I'll give some other examples of some of the areas that I visited over the weekend where you see some of the stuff that is happening and trying to put what was old with the new so it doesn't look segmented. So hopefully that answers some of your questions. Thank you, chair.

Thank you very much. We'll continue with the public hearing. Again, I have no specific cards on this issue. So anyone wishing to speak now, please come up. Miss Pashki, you're standing up first. Welcome.

Pam Pashki, 341 Southwest 2nd Street. As a point of order, I'd like to make a request. It seems to me that the requirement that we state our name and address lets you know we're a citizen and this is our address. When a lawyer or someone else comes up and they give an address and they don't say who they work for or who they're representing as a lobbyist, I want to know as the public, you guys all know Miss Zacharitas, but I don't actually know is this investments limited the whole project and I the name of her firm. It seems to me like a person representing someone else should have an extendedformational presentation at the beginning. So that bugs me. It's been bugging me for a while

because those of us who aren't on the city council don't know all the people that come up to speak. So let me um say that I don't I'm I'm also don't like the garage design. I think it should fit in more with Royal Palm Place. I like the hotel. It looks very nice. Um, it's obviously going to be a good thing for Bokeh, but I I I find that super modern. It's not going to last. These old buildings have been around a long time, and the architecture is in this city timeless. So, I think that this sevenstory garage, which seems to be a popular size, um should be a little more respective to the the buildings, the hotel itself, as well as the buildings to the south, I guess it is. Um I think that was all I wanted to say.

Thank you, Miss Basky. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you.

Anyone else wishing to speak on this issue? Mr. Pearlman, welcome. John Pearlman, 498 Northeast A Street. This shopping plaza, I actually I live near it and I go to it frequently and as per what uh Mr. Warner said it it does have a lot of charm and it it's very charming and it's a lot like the bokeh we want to have that type of charm and this proposal seems to be flipping that around um into something else and Miss Zacharitas was talking about and comparing us to West Palm Beach and that's that's really the essential problem here. She stated, she posed a question to you. She said, "Do we want Bokeh to become a true urban center?" And the answer is no. We we don't want to. This current city council has sent has set Bokeh on a path towards urbanization, which is counter to what Bokeh is meant to be, which its legacy is a as a city, a a city within a park. and turning it into an urban center similar to West Palm Beach is not in line with the character of what Bokeh is meant to be and what the residents and everybody who's chosen to live in Bokeh wants it to be. And we we've chosen to live here for a reason because it's a beautiful city. It has amazing parks and an amazing quality of life. And we want to preserve that. And that's that's why I started Save Bokeh and why Save Bokeh has swept this city in the way it has. It's because people are unhappy with the way that this council is taking this

city on this rapid this rapid path towards urbanization which is completely out of line with the character of this city. And the last thing I'll say is that this development services department, it doesn't seem as though they filter the the proposals that arrive to this city council. Um, when asked about the question, why are why are we looking at the this proposal the way it is? Mr. Shad responded just now, he said, that's the application they've made and this is what we're talking about. And this is and he said, and this is why we're talking about it. That's a problem. A development services department needs to Mr. Pearlman, please direct your

needs to be taking into account these projects, reviewing them, having some type some type of a filtration process, some type of of a review before these proposals arrive for consideration to the city council. And clearly based on what he just stated, that's not happening. And that's a problem. Thank you, Mr. Pman. What you just said is completely false. This has been written review for three years. It's been a a project that's been discussed. It's been previously approved for two years or three years before just the first iteration. So, you know, again, you're entitled to your opinions, but you're not entitled to your own set of facts. Anyone else, please? Of course. Miss Mororrow.

Hello. My name is Judy Mororrow and this city council something was approved and then the emergency room then it was not approved. So you don't have to always keep approving something that was approved. So um but I talked last week about six floors. Why don't you talk about our neighbor next door, Del Rey? They have a sixfloor limit. You know why? Because they want to keep their city like a village. They want to make it nice. And what Bokeh needs to add, if we need to add anything to our city, it's we need to add attractions, tourist attractions. Why don't we have an an aquarium? Why don't we have a petting zoo? Why don't we have a bigger turtle exhibit? Why don't we And that's another thing. This council would not approve the six the $750,000 for the turtle hospital. That's an attraction in Boca Raton. That's something that brings people to Bokeh. That brought our family to Bokeh to see the Gumbbo Limbo. Those are the kind of things Bokeh needs. And I really, really wish you all would go and look at Delray sixfloor limit and how their city council has protected something. And why don't you protect why don't you protect downtown? Why don't you protect? Our roads are so narrow and so little. They're not designed like in Jupiter where they have six and eight

lanes and they can build all kinds of things. But we need to build we there's a lot of hotels right now on federal highway. Why don't the investors why don't they buy that and renovate those? They're already hotels. So, there's a lot of things that please look at attractions that will bring people to Bokeh. A hotel is not going to bring people to Bokeh. We have enough. We already have that. Think of something new. Please think of something new, an attraction for Bokeh. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak on this issue? Yes. Thank you. Joseph Pachowski 17309 Belboy point way. Royal Palm Place was the first real estate project that I worked on uh in my life 20 years ago. In February 2007, the Bokea News wrote about the curation of a dozen restaurants creating a restaurant row. Today, the applicant's uh representative referred to four restaurants being called Restaurant Row when it when it really started at Royal Palm Place. Um, I really hope this hotel gets built in the next with I think if it gets built within I know Jim doesn't like to develop, but if if it gets built within the next 30 months, I think it has the chance to beat Wellington, the Village of Wellington project as the first truly mixeduse project in the entire county that has retail, residential, office, and a hotel, which would really turn it into a mixeduse montage, which is what this icon right here stands for my only question is at the planning and zoning meeting why neither staff nor the the the applicant's representative nor the board talked about the why behind the the v the parking variance the parking uh deviance I'm sorry and I still don't think today it's been talked about uh addressed appropriately uh the the hotel's already been approved In 2022, it was approved without the deviants. Why could it be built without the deviants? If you if you approve the project today with the new parking garage without the devian, could it be built? Why why is the deviance necessary for the hotel to be built? Um, switching gears,

I wrote you all an email on February 9th. Uh, not one of you responded to it, so I'll read it here now and hopefully I can get an answer. Good evening. I was able to watch today's CRA meeting recording after finishing work and wanted to provide some public comments since the meeting was held in the middle of the day. I can't find the words to describe how much you failed the city today after the mayor discussed financials. Three of you are attorney are attorneys with advanced concept contractual knowledge. Meisner Park is the most important asset in the city from my perspective. I founded LEUP in Bokeh and Meisner Park is the only asset that inspired one of Lisa's four branded icons. The bottom of page two of the resolution that you all voted in favor of it asserts that the CRA has reviewed the documentation related to the asene financial ability to fulfill the obligations under the leases. Yet your CFO testified when asked that he only reviewed the con consolidated statements of net assets for acre multifamily fund for parent REIT and the 10Q for stepstone group Inc. that were part of the attached packet submitted to council. Neither acre nor stepstone are asenees or parties to the proposed agreement. So contrary to what was asserted, no financials on the proposed asinees were reviewed. Additionally, the proposed assignment forms are incomplete as the blanks after the asenee entities have not been filled out. Do the asin entities even exist or are they fictitious entities with no financials at all?

Mr. Vchowski, thank you. There's another public comment after this public hearing. Okay, please. Thank you. Thank you very much. Anyone else? All right. Seeing none, we'll uh allow any party wishing to cross-examine someone who gave testimony. Seeing none, we'll allow the petitioner to close.

Sure. I'm just going to try to answer a few questions that were raised. I I try to take notes. So, if I missed anything, please uh let me know. Miss Zacharitas, can you please state specifically uh what firm you work for and who the who is the party that you're representing in this matter? Uh Ellie Zacharitas, law partner at Mskell Bachman, 14 Southeast Fourth Street. Uh my client there's different property owners. So it will be the BMIN family and investments limited generally speaking.

Different entities I should say. Um I think that answered her question. Okay. So, downtown, when did we become a downtown? We became a downtown when there was a referendum and the residents of the city of Bokeh spoke and spoke very loudly. That referendum in the 80s was a landslide where they decided how they wanted downtown to be developed. That is when we became a downtown That is exactly when, not today, not yesterday, but over 40 years ago. Um, as to the technical deviation for the reduction in parking, I believe we have answered that question. I think we talked about it very thoroughly at planning and zoning and quite frankly very thoroughly here. Despite the fact that we announced and we screamed it from the rooftop that we wanted to have a downtown in the city of Bokeh in the 80s, the parking regulations that were drafted and approved at that exact time are archaic and they are suburban and they are not the reality of what is on the ground and the demand that is needed for these developments. That is our reality as it relates to West Palm. I think I made it clear. If I did not, I will say it again. I do not want to be West Palm. I want to be better than West Palm. Um, there are many things about West Palm that are attractive and there are many things as a resident of the city of Bokeh that I would not want here. The only point of me bringing up West Palm was merely to explain that in a downtown, what other downtowns, our neighbors, what they require for parking in a true downtown setting. that was the only purpose of that conversation.

Um, I I do want to make a note that while some may not like the hotel or some may want residential or some may want an aquarium, we have to understand and I know the five of you have a very difficult job, but we all have to understand that properties owners have property rights and there are regulations that are drafted. So, while Ellie may prefer an aquarium at this location, the property owner doesn't have to build one. They have the right to build in accordance with the regulations. Um, and as it relates to staff, and I think this is the last comment I will make, I welcome anybody to come and spend a day with me. um because if they think staff rubber stamps our applications, they are strongly mistaken. Susan and I have been working on this project for probably seven years now. 7 years. Camino Square Phase 1 took 4 years to secure approval. To be exact, I have not had any application take less than 11 months in our downtown. And when our downtown regulations were adopted, they were supposed to be streamlined. We were supposed to go from start to finish in no time at all. I think Modera in my 20 almost 23 years of practicing in our city, Modera was the fastest approval I secured in our downtown and it took me 11 months. Um, so with that, I I will tell you staff gives me a very hard time and they review our applications extremely

thoroughly. And if it would be helpful from here on out, I could put on my starting slide or my end slide, the day we submitted every resubmitt so the residents, those watching and in the room, as well as the five of you recognize how long these processes do in fact take. I think that's a great idea. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Hold on. May I ask some questions of Miss Zacharatis? Sure. Miss Zacharatis, please come back. Thank you. Yes.

First of all, I don't think you need to go to that necessary step because some people may be uninformed about the processes. Um, people who've been following the city for more than, you know, a few months understand the thorough rigor. Um in fact we've despite putting in 20 streamlining initiatives we've had um there's still think things there is a a thorowness that's going in and I think we're putting too much emphasis on the comment that was unusual which is why I called it out. Could you maybe just expl let's eat the elephant. Explain why again why this was submitted this way with we understand the downtown parking the underground parking poses a number of logistical challenges um and that you've um you're still improving a deficit. I can you answer anything more about that general question that maybe just you know we kill that issue right there.

Sure. So I'm sorry. Can we put my presentation back up? I apologize. Um, so based on my parking slide, thank you by the way. Uh, based on my parking slide, if I can get back to it, the required parking under today's code would be 502 parking spaces. We are proposing 76 parking spaces between the hotel and the garage. In fairness, we are also removing, as you previously asked, 116 surface parking spaces. I will not do math, but it's 706 minus 116. I believe that still exceeds 502. The real reason for our ask for this alternative parking plan is not because it's necessarily needed for this development. It's the reality of the demand for parking in a downtown. And again, not going as extreme as West Palm, but recognizing that the city's downtown parking code is extremely overparked. By approving this alternative parking plan, what it does is provide the applicant, the property owner that owns 15.4 4 acres and hundreds of thousands of square feet at this location. It it gives them the ability to remove the deficit in its entirety, which we believe is in fact the case, while also providing a 69 parking space surplus. That surplus will allow a tenant, a retail tenant to leave and potentially put in a restaurant tenant. Restaurants require more parking than retail. So that is the purpose of this alternative parking plan. It is more in line with reality than a 40 plus

year old parking code. And even if we declined to see it your way on your alternative parking, you are still providing more parking spaces than exist here given that the site was built in the 1960s and is underparked. That is accurate. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's it.

Mr. Sure. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Earitus. So, a couple things. Um, I agree with you, Miss Zacharitas. I don't always agree with you, but on this case, I do agree with you. We're overparked in the downtown, and we do have to grow up. Are we going to be an urban center? Uh, and I sit up here all the time. Less parking. If you go to Del Rey, they have parking lots and one parking garage, but the restaurants don't have parking unless they have valet. And people find a way to go there. Uh, I was there Friday night and it was packed. There were people everywhere. So, that's the first thing. Uh, second thing about parking. I was in PMPO Beach yesterday. Done an incredible job. They're not West Palm, but the the the pier side, there's like one parking garage. Uh, all those restaurants were full of people. People were walking everywhere. I walked down to the pier. I walked two miles throughout the outside perimeter. That's where I noticed um the different buildings, the different architecture because they put in like a new hotel there. They put the W Hotel, which is very modern. But then there was other hotels that were less modern. And it all kind of fit together. So, oh, their fire station was very modern, but then there was a a building across from it that was less modern, but it all fit together. They've done an incredible job. Um, I have I mean, I know some of the Pompo folks, but what an incredible job they've done there. Um, thank you, Mr. Ojulski, for bringing up Wellington because I just had a presentation. You all know I sit on treasure coast planning council and the Wellington folks came in and gave a great update on their project with the mixuse the hotel and their anchor which was is Nordstrom believe Nordstrom or Nordstrom rack they're kind of an impecc there. So again cities that are progressive innovative and moving forward with the times. Uh I'd like so the next thing I was going to say the pedestrian bridge I really like from a safety perspective connecting the hotel to the other side. They have that um when they did the diplomat when they redid the diplomat in Hollywood um they have a pedestrian bridge connected to a parking garage a very large parking garage nothing like this parking garage but that parking

garage is for public and for the hotel as well. So yes I do travel the entire state county and cities looking at best practices and not so best practices. Uh, in terms of triangular parking, not great. Super unsafe that parking lot with the fountain and you go in and people are coming in and people are coming out. People are walking on the sidewalk. There's Alina across the street. So, love that you're going to fix that and um make it so much better. Um, for me again, less parking is always a good idea. We can't say we want urban downtown walkability and continue to have um all this parking. So, I believe that our ordinance is antiquated. Uh, I don't want to be a West Palm, but as we continue um to move forward um and and re and redo our the 4035, those are be conversations for the council. Um I mentioned earlier uh the extended stay. That's why we had approved or at least that's why I voted for this project in the past. Um the charm of Bokeh. Bokeh is bokeh. For those of you that say Bokeh is not what it used to be, it isn't. Bokeh has changed and it has evolved. We have two big we have two strains, two train stations. We have the Bright Line that's coming through. We have Tri Rail that's coming through. Neither of those are going anywhere. And I'm going to give an update on that in my commission's report. We have all these restaurants wanting to do business here, wanting to come here, retail spaces, a lot of young families moving here. So downtown is what it is. If you do not like a downtown, by definition, there are a lot of communities in this amazing city, whether you go to the Midtown or where we live more on this side of town, that are quieter.

Mr. Trucker, do you have any more questions? Just those were the statements that I was going to make and for those reasons, I'm going to vote yes for this project. Thank you. Any other questions for Miss Zacharitas before she closes?

Thank you. I just wanted to um to get clarity on a statement that was made and I've been going to this to this um to Royal Palm since Woolly's was there since Jan McCarts was there so back in the 80s. So I do remember uh what it looked like before some of the before some of the changes but there was a a statement made that that you said um that you're trying to make Bokeh more urban, but you meant the downtown. You're talking about when we grow up is what you said. We have to decide whether we want to be more urban and you meant in the downtown, not all of Bokeh. Solely the downtown.

Correct. Okay. I just wanted to clarify that because it was portrayed that you meant the entirety of Bokeh, but you were talking about the downtown. Okay. All right. Um, so the only other um

thing that I wanted to just opine on was that I do believe that the Meisner style, it's uniquely bokeh, right? But I do like the mix of architecture as well. So I do love the Alina. I think it's beautiful. Um and I do like the Meisner style, but I like the changes that we made in the last couple years with more glass and and things that were updated. But I think that um the core, the the essential part of it should always at the heart be miser style. So I know there's different interpretations of that and um the architect said that as well. So, if we can lean a little more into that um and not get too far away from that, that's what I'd like to see. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Miss Zachus, you may close. Thank you. I'm all done. Thank you. All done. Thank you. All right. With nothing further, I'll ask for a motion and a second to adopt resolution CRP00002R7 as amended. So moved. Second. So moved. Second. Any further discussion? Mr. Thompson,

I think we started off uh quite aptly with the questions regarding the what's being done to address the deficiency that exists here has existed at this property for a long time as it relates to parking. And I think the the takeaway it wasn't um I think it was addressed in one of your clarification one of your clarifying comments I think described it perfectly which is this is pretty significantly reducing the shortage of parking that's there which is what our code asks of them. It's not to address the entirety of it. It is to reduce the problem and that is what is happening by their amendment and this proposed uh revision to their prior approval. Several comments were made regarding the the particular use that is was approved and will continue to be here which is a hotel. uh that may you may be right that maybe a hotel is there's not a great demand for that but in in Bokeh and in in America private property owners have rights to develop in the way that is consistent with the code and with the zoning regulations and as long as they do that it's really not our place to say we don't think this will be a successful use the private the market determines what will be a successful use and a hotel is a permitted use in this area they've brought in an application that on the hotel parcel is compliant with our rules. So, it's really not something that is left to us to decide. We would prefer to have some other use there. That's that's not how our our certainly our downtown. It's just not how our property rights work generally speaking. There was a and and specifically downtown I there was a a comment made and I hear it loud and clear that the redevelopment has occurred downtown has changed the city. That's true. It was part of a plan that was approved by the voters many years ago which granted additional property rights to property

owners downtown. And this application and the revision to it is simply just an execution upon that redevelopment plan that was put in place a long time ago. And for us to say no on the basis of we don't like a hotel use or we don't want to grant any more despite what was done before. We don't want to see any more building here. that would operate to, in my view, unconstitutionally deprive a property owner of their rights to develop consistent with our laws and with our code and with our zoning regulations. And that would be a problem. If we were to do that and we were to make a history of doing that, we would have to be city attorney is probably going to stop me from saying it, but we would be liable potentially to property owners for the deprivation of their property rights, and that would create a significant problem for our city. Another comment was made about the process and about how um this kind of thing shouldn't be coming to us through the development services department. I do think that our process is rigorous. Actually, it has been described to me as quite rigorous compared to other cities nearby and that's I think largely a good thing because it creates I think a better product. I know not every property owner appreciates the rigor with which they have to work to get to this point to a final hearing. I I understand that. But we have to balance the need and the rights that property owners have with also maintaining the character and charm that we can consistent with the constitution. So we have I agree probably a more rigorous process than other places do and I think that is largely a good thing. Also, we don't decide when property owners want to redevelop. Property owners have property rights. They come to us, they submit an application to us. We owe them due process when that happens. So, to simply deny them a hearing forever is simply not something that we could do, consistent with the constitution and

consistent with due process. So we do have a rigorous process, but it does ultimately conclude with a final hearing, a public hearing where the applicant gets to make their case. Development services department provides its professional comments and review of whether these the application is consistent with our rules and with our laws and then we ultimately vote. That's how the process is built. And it's quasi judicial for a reason is because we have to provide enhanced due process in a situation like that. So, I I I don't think that the process is is flawed. It has to be that way. Constitutionally, it has to be that way. And I think we, if anything, make it more rigorous than a lot of other places do. And I think largely that benefits the city because it yields a better product and a better result at the end. All of that is my way of saying um I understand the comments that were made and I appreciate every everybody speaking about this, but I believe that this does this application is consistent with our rules. It is consistent with our laws and it does operate to improve upon the situation that exists now now in terms of a deficit of parking at Royal Palm Place. So I will be supporting it. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Miss Knuckles. Anything further? No. Mr. Duggar, back to you. No. You good?

Okay. No. Uh thank you. Thank you, Mr. Thompson, for those uh those comments. Yeah, I think um the the original project was approved prior to uh prior to my election. So, I've always been in the um in the position to be discussing with the applicant the amendments and obviously um I've said previously, you know, I have significant concerns with underground parking in Bokeh with its high water table. Um I know we've approved some in the past. Um I'm not a big fan of of that continuing. So when the opportunity arose for the applicant to consider an amendment to remove the underground parking but also to create an above ground parking opportunity that would erase or that would somewhat erase the deficit of parking in the um you know in the Royal Palm Plaza which is grandfathered in because it was built in the 1960s. I saw this as an opportunity to, you know, improve and I appreciated the applicant's efforts um to to improve uh not just the hotel plaza but the entire plaza and so I saw this as a great opportunity to improve Royal Prom Plaza because I think it is um you know to Mr. Pearlman's point it is it is one of our cultural gems. It it is is a beautiful place and I think that this is going to um I think that this obviously this application is going to improve that. One of the things that Miss Druer talked about is um downtown parking requirements and one of the things that I've also talked about and we we we said it kind of had nauseium today is we have this suburban parking

requirement still downtown and we should be moving away from that. Um moving away from that is is not about parking minimums. It's about parking maximums. Um and uh and appreciating that uh everyone that is coming to this hotel or coming to the retail that's wrapped around the garage is not going to be driving there. Many of the people already live there or can walk across the street from Alina or some of those other things. Likewise, we we've talked about it for years. Um, with parking hubs uh potentially at the Alto office building and with a parking hub potentially here south of Palmetto, we have an opportunity to have that excess opportunity to reduce off- streetet parking requirements for Pomemetto Park Road. And these parking hubs is something that we're talking about. And as Miss Ducker aptly said in Delray, that's what they have. they have a parking hub and then these businesses can operate. Uh and they're not based just on the number of cars that are coming because they're based on internal trip recapture based on some of the people that are living there that are staying there. And with our Book of Connect with the um with the autonomous shuttle which is soon going to be able to uh autonomously drive from Meisner to uh to Royal Palm Plaza. Again, we have to stop depending on a suburban parking code in the in the downtown. I think Mr. Thompson Apply also said that the market dictates um the market dictates what the applicants want to do here. Um you know, we're not in that position and in any democracy, generally speaking, you're not in a position to tell an applicant what they're allowed to do with their own property if it's if it's pursuant to the code. how we reimagine the downtown code uh is is going to be the subject uh of some lengthy discussion which we just started but really has started many many years

ago and I think it's not going to be about more parking I think it's going to be about more walking um and uh and a lot of this plan does that so for those reasons I am supportive that being said Miss please call the role Thompson yes Dreer Yes. Nackquas. Yes. Singer. Yes. Wer. Yes. Motion passes five votes to zero. Thank you very much. Okay. Um, now it is time for regular public requests in the CRA. Miss Andrea Oor has been very patient and has waited.

I was going to talk about different things, but uh Andrew Lavinoor 100 Southeast Fifth Avenue uh Boca Raton. Um I uh um speaking for myself, not for workshop 344 or for safe bokeh, although I do strongly uh believe in the residents right to vote for public property. Um I've lived here since 1979 for 47 years. I've been active in the business community and in public service. I sat where you sat sit right now for six years. So I totally understand the weight of representing residents and understand the burden of hard decisions. And I will say, although I'm not planning on talking about Royal Palm, I do think that downtown is an urban environment. It needs to be treated as an urban environment, and I do think Royal Palm needs some help with parking and safety. So, I I see this as as a as a potential improvement. Uh, not what I came to talk about. Um, I have I have I'm going to go over now because of all that, so bear me, bear with me. I've stayed away from public comment on the uh long arduous process of the government campus. Uh I've shared privately when people ask that I do believe it has been a flawed process from the very beginning. Uh and u but it has come a long way and and for that I appreciate. Uh but I have to get some stuff off my chest about this. Um in the past few weeks I have gotten 17 mailers just for the vocal one in my mailbox. Um, not to mention the texts and the emails. First of all, can we be honest? The P3 is not the government campus project anymore. Although you call it that, the citizens have and will pay for the government buildings as I understand it. This is not a walkable neighborhood as stated on the ballot question. This is a transit oriented community and downtown adjacent. Can't we just say that? Is it not okay? It's important. Why it's Why is it important? because the truth matters. Not to mention it

would um it would avoid confusion. It would avoid the anger that we're constantly seeing and and what is called the misinformation that we keep that you keep addressing from the from the deis. So why mask uh mask it in misinformation? One mailer says and I can't go through all of them. It'll take too much time but one mailer says we deserve a great downtown. I could not agree more. You have heard me talk about that a million times. So then why is Meisner Park deteriorating physically as well as in leases? Why is Palmetto Park Road downtown a dangerous speedway and lacking real mixed use and economic viability on our very own main street? Why do we lack walkability, connectivity from the beach to downtown between downtown and to the Bright Line? Why don't we have a cultural arts center that was promised when we voted on Meisner Park 33 years ago? We were promised a cultural arts center. Why is traffic a continual public issue especially in this area and yet we haven't provided in-depth studies that I am aware of uh with three major ordinances and thank you so much for putting a pause on that. We need to have public outreach. We need to understand uh that was flying through the process. One of these mailers says that one bokeh honors our history and our veterans. Exactly. How are we doing that? Bokeh one is not doing that. They are not because it is public land that the residents did not want to give away. The taxpayers will pay to restore that to the glory that it should be and should have been. One says we are making downtown sa BCO one says we are making downtown safer. How is how are we making downtown safer? Uh one states more parks bokeh one states more park space a new city hall a state-of-the-art community center. Well, unless one bokeh is the city of Boca Raton, that's not true. Taxpayers will be building these things that are mentioned that are going to be given to us through a P3. So, now let's talk about the ballot question for a

minute. Four of you agreed that it was fair and unbiased. I beg to disagree. It simply is not. And one question, your time's gone way over. There's a the public uh the workshop is right after this if you want. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? Mr. Pearlman. John Pearlman, 498 Northeast A Street. Mr. Wigger, you just stated with respect to this private property, with respect to this hotel development project, you stated we're not in that position to tell a property owner what they're allowed to do with their own property. Yet you and this council were doing just that with public land, with the public's property. You wanted to tell the public and decide for them with a fivep person vote on October 28th, what they were going to do with our property, our 31 acres of public land, probably what could be the most valuable real estate in Boca Raton that the public owns. what the public should do with that without any public vote. And you were going to bulldoze Memorial Park. You were going to transform the whole thing into hotel hotel highrises, condo highrises, office highrises, and you were going to tell the public what they were what they were doing with their property without any say. But thanks to Save Bokeh, we have the vote coming up and the public will decide and we know what the outcome will be. Thank you.

Thank you,

Richard Warner, 1322 Southwest 9th Terrace. I recognize and I said before the problem of private property rights and I don't know if calling it a problem is accurate. It is what it is. I think the disaster that befell Bokeh happened due to corruption in the 1980s that allowed this to happen and that formed the CRA and gave the vision of downtown Bokeh. that in my opinion having a long history has pretty much trashed Bokeh has changed it from the wonderful place it was the unique place it was into just like every place else and I recognize you know talking about Delray I don't think Delray I think the the limit is good but not enough. I think Stuart tried to do it right and it's kind of curious cuz I went through Pompo yesterday as well along the and I was in a vehicle with three other people who all have either been here a long time or a couple of them are kids. kids to me. They were 27 and everyone said, "My god, this is horrible." So, obviously, Miss Trucker and I view this differently. Uh,

I I think we had something pretty wonderful and it's been wrecked and I understand that you guys have no choice but to approve that project we were talking about, but you do have a choice about the 7.8 acres and approving that is an atrocity. And I think there's one other factor and I I really appreciate the idea of saying we need an attraction because we do. Approving variances is not something you have to do. And maybe by not approving variances, you can push back on development just a little bit. Uh, I don't think that involves the constitutionality of private property. They got to follow the letter of the law. Thank you.

Thank you. Public requests. Anyone else? Mr. Puowski,

Joseph Pujowski 17309 Boowbo Point Way. So, I just wanted to pick back up on my comments from earlier related to Meisner Park assignment. Um, as I said, the city knows the Asener entities. I'm sorry. Do the where I left off is do the ASE entities even exist or are they fictitious entities with no financials at all? They certainly are not registered to do business in the state of Florida. Lastly, the mayor questioned what sort of understanding we have of the Asener's financial understanding and the city CFO responded, I don't have any. Quote, this couldn't be farther from the truth. The city knows that Asenor Asenor entities have been in good standing since 1996 and 2003. That they had the financial strength to obtain a $62 million mortgage and that they recently had the financial wherewithal to retain Burger Singerman to litigate against the city for years pertaining to the subject property. The condition for landlord's consent to approval in the lease is very clear. Quote, "Landlord agrees that a party having financial resources at least equal to those of the tenant as of the date hereof in current dollars will be acceptable to landlord." End quote. It was made very clear to you all today that the city has no financials on the proposed asenees and rather than request financials for the asenor and asenee as outlined in the lease. You chose to ignore the facts and vote in favor of an assignment of leasehold interest on the city's greatest asset to fictitious shell entities that do not have equal or greater financial resources as you did this as the same time that your constituents are dealing with the mannering construction site is that is now tied up in bankruptcy proving how much the financials of the actual contractual entities matter and how insignificant the financials of acre and stepstones since they are not asenees or parties to the proposed agreement. I've

copied the applicant's attorney who who represented she was there today on behalf of Brookfield and completed the proposed assignment to when Brookfield stepped in. This testimony is flawed because the tenants Crocker Meisner Park 3 Limited and Crocker Meisner Park 4 Limited did not change when Brookfield stepped in. So, an assignment to a new entity like what is being proposed never took place. I'd like some response after waiting all that time.

Thank you very much. In this particular instance, Mr. Kaya, if you want to just refresh our recollection on the legal requirements of the Meisner Park assignment. Sure, please. And Mr. Zervis perhaps might chime in on the public company. Sure. This is in reference to action the CRA took, I believe, at its meeting on the 9th. Um the CRA evaluated whether the proposed assignees viewed within the ownership and control structure as a whole into which the leases were being transferred had the financial ability to fulfill the obligations of the tenant under the leases. Now that was the uh report and recommendation made by your professional staff including Mr. Ko and Mr. service and included, I believe, 110 pages or thereabouts of supporting documents. And so, uh, the CRA was looking again at the strength financially, the continuity, the capacity of of that ownership platform as a whole, right? Rather than just the balance sheets of individual special purpose entities formed to hold leaseold interest, there were organizational chart and supporting financial materials provided to show the capitalization and capacity of that platform. And um so the the CRA reviewed that. Again, a use of a specialurpose limited liability company to hold a long-term leaseold interest is fairly customary in large-scale institutional real estate transactions. is contemplated and so uh based upon the lease and and the information presented and pre presented by your staff uh the CRA determined that the proposed assignees did satisfy that standard um for financial ability um and that the obligations most importantly under the leases remained unchanged. Uh all the obligations, remedies, default provisions applicable to the tenant continued in full force in effect. Uh

and so that that was the review that was before you. Uh it it technically isn't framed as an approval or a consent under our uh under the lease. Um the applicant did request that and that was the basis for the CRA's action.

Thank you. And let me just say one more thing about ground leases. The ground lease of of city land is is collateralized by the property. if they default, the city gets it back. I would never wish a default on uh Meisner Park or you know or or on any property owner. But the point is the default remedy would be that the city gets back Meisner Park for free. So the collateralization here is very very strong in favor of uh continued maintenance and uh payment of the ground lease payments that are due under the ground lease. Anyone else for public request? Yes, Mr. Nelson. Welcome for the CRA.

Yeah, sure.

Uh Keith Nelson, 841 Park Drive East. Um I actually I came here to talk about 5771 and 4035, but I'd like to thank the mayor and the council for postponing that. I do have a question though. Um can maybe not can answer now but can someone elaborate on the process of the community involvement um when we rewrite that code will it be like 4035 with which I I hear for many years this massive community involvement all the residents the business owners all that so I'd like to learn what that process will be for whatever the final code is for the replacement and um and then on a side note since I'm here and it might be the last time I talked in front of all you. I'd like to thank uh publicly Zach Bear for getting our crosswalk done on East Pett Park Road and Waverress Way as well as the seaw wall that was been flooding in Port Lamar for ever.

Yeah. And uh that's all. Thank you. Thanks, Mr. Nelson. Thank you. We'll we'll approach that question in the next workshop and and respond after. Anyone else? Okay, we'll close the time for public requests. There are no resolutions or regular public hearings, nor is there any other business or settlements. Mr. Suhaney, any CRA report. Thank you, Mr. Chair. No report. Mr. Kaylor, any report? No report. Thank you. Thank you, commissioners. Mr. Thompson, no report. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Miss Kniff.

Thank you. Now, I just um had a request for the city manager um that after our discussion today, I've noticed in the downtown and in other places around town um valet plans are not being followed all the time and they're spilling over into the parking spaces that we are able to park in ourselves. So, just ask that you follow up with some of the valet plans that um are in our downtown and other parts of the area. Yes, I will. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Ducker. No report. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Four brief items. Yes.

Uh first to respond to some resident concerns. Uh it was stated earlier and I'm I'm tired of the invective um by uh some individuals who keep misstating things. Um there were no plans to bulldoze Memorial Park as we've had extensive conversations. It was never a dedicated area and right now today we don't know what it would be. We have said repeatedly though and will say and I'm saying in response to responses, we're going to formally dedicate Memorial Park no matter what is done with the downtown vote on March 10th. That is important. Um it's also been raised to me, Miss Pashki, before I'll help I'll answer your question beforehand. Um there are um there are communications suggesting that the downtown plan will enhance Memorial Park. I do think that is true. I think even despite our dedic regardless of our dedication of it, um having more revenue streams to to fulfill the more ambitious visions for a memorial park, some of them are quite impressive done with feedback from veterans and other groups. Um those are more extensive and I think more funds would be allocated to those if the downtown pass passes. But regardless, Memorial Park will be dedicated and will be up to uh future city leaders to determine what exactly goes in there. But I am tired of hearing that we were going to bulldoze the entirety of the area. Not true. Um tired of misstatements about trees uh buildings on banyan trees. Not true. Tired of hearing that a uh political committee was responsible for putting this question on the ballot when it was the council who did so. Um and then another question was um uh struck because of its constitutional defects. Uh that responds to some resident concerns. Um two things just small in the discussion of 4035. I will note and I know to the city manager it would help if we're going to look at this and maybe it was the strictures of 4035 that did

it. The issue we just voted on with the Royal Palm Place. If you read the title alone, it suggests that we were reducing the parking by 600 odd spots when in reality the deficiency existed before the application in 22 and that this is a net increase. I think it would have been helpful to the public had we said so in the title and if we're not able to do that under 4035 as it stands, that's another salutary beneficial change we ought to make. So people are clear, people are busy. Um we don't expect everyone to read everything. So, the more we can try to make titles more clear on this issue, that's a simple one. And then I did want to talk about downtown parking. I'm going to commend to everyone's consideration and staff's consideration. I don't know when was the last time we had um a study about the timing of, you know, when parking demand is highest and if that might affect how we um meter spaces. We've had conversations over the years. I recall one a year ago when we were struggling with people saying I have to keep feeding the me meter after 11. You know, we're really worried about overnight parking. But in the downtown, there are areas of the downtown where I don't see those parking spaces used during non- peak hours and we might consider how we go about uh enforcing those and maybe we have a different standard of time whether it's peak non- peak. It's just something we ought to look at from time to time and I would suggest that you know we take a look periodically and this may be time that time for that period. That concludes my report. Thank you.

Thank you very much. And I have a brief report as well. If I could pull it up. Um obviously we've been talking about the CRA for a long time. Uh this is a previous report I gave about three years ago. I changed no slides just to refresh my recollection and everyone some of the things that we've been talking about for years here not just one day so just giving a brief update of course the CRA has its own budget its own planning code it deals with many critical infrastructure projects when I think about the downtown and our planning criteria and some of the things that we need to think about we always talk about connectivity moving from one place to another we talk about walkability throughout this district. Resiliency. Will the design and quality stand the test of time? Several people mentioned that today. Vibrancy. Uh are there enough people in action so the people want to come here, stay here, and the businesses and venues can thrive? And of course, culture, as Miss Aor said, is there art, design, wellness, activities, attractions, dining options, entertainment, all those things. Over the past 30 years or so, you know, Meisner Park's been a centerpiece of that. And I think as a result, even though it's not in the CRA, the people that live really close to the CRA have benefited from that. And I think the property values around the CRA have gone up perhaps a thousand% and now people love to live downtown right near Meisn Park, not because it's so terrible, but because it's so great and because they could just walk there or drive their golf carts there. And I think it's something that people are appreciated and enhanced property values again. So the CRA is its own little entity and its own little map. But the impact of the CRA has gone way beyond the boundaries of the CRA and the people in that quote golden triangle um have been uh let's say primary beneficiaries and I think

for that for those for those kind of considerations it's been working. There's variety. There's diversity of options. A sense of place, right? People when people go to Meisner Park, you send a picture, everyone knows that this is Meisner Park. It's some It is something special. It's something that we want to keep doing. Again, this is a presentation from three years ago. Uh the discussion right when I was elected was that we need to begin the 4035 renewal/extension. We've done the extension but the renewal. We've talked about and we have painted the amphitheater. We talked about enhanced communication downtown wayfinding. We have established a trolley. We have established last mile collection with the Bokeh connect and now with the um with the autonomous shuttle, right? We keep talking about beautifying Palmetto Park and the CRA traffic calming features on major arteries. It's funny in all the communities that I've been going to lately. I haven't uh I've I've heard of course of traffic during rush hour only, but I haven't been hearing problems of traffic going too slow. I've been hearing problems of traffic going too fast, of people speeding like crazy in the downtown as soon as rush hour is over. Why? Because there's main stretches, there's drags where you could just gun it to get to the bridge. And I don't know what it is, somehow people are driving like they're going to drive into the Atlantic Ocean. They cross that bridge and they just gun it. Um and so having trafficcoming features to reduce speeding and obviously Mr. Suni more enforcement on speeders after rush hour uh after after the rush hour. We've talked about this even today a pilot program for reducing off- streetet parking on Palmetto. Hopefully these parking hubs are going to do that and investing in the ability to capture data from residents and businesses on what's working, what's not working. Right? Public outreach is not just we're going

to be reducing or replacing a code. It's got to happen all the time. We need to consider considerable improvements to creating a more walkable vibrant downtown as we talked about. Maybe midblock crossings, maybe speed tables, FDOT's complete streets of course and activating Palmetto Park Road from city hall to the beach. The real planning has just begun. Again, three years ago we were talking about pedestrian bridge to the city hall campus. And even three years ago, we were talking potentially about campus redevelopment. Again, slides from three years ago, things that take a long time. These are not things that just snap just just happened. These are things that take a long time, right? We have slightly renovated and updated um the amphitheater, which is a great thing. There's a lot of work to remain. Again, this is from three years ago. The civic center and the side of the CRA where the Bright Line remains inactivated. Palmetto activation remains challenged. Why? Because of the suburban parking regulations. We've approved projects over the last 30 years, but especially recently, they haven't reflected a balance of uses. This trading of the OES has been occurring, but they've been mostly occurring for residential. So, you know, where we've had this opportunity in the last couple years, we finally have one hotel that's been approved, this one, and one office building that's approved, the one that just started coming out of the ground. Transit between the sub areas is non-existent, so it remains disconnected. Now, with Bokeh Connect, we have that opportunity. And the traffic on major arteries is too fast for a downtown feel. Again, if people are just racing on Federal Highway or Dixie Highway, um you know, just to get through the downtown, then it's not a real downtown. In the downtown, you are supposed to slow down. If you want to race through downtown to get by it, you should be on I95 or on some other road, right? The idea is when you're downtown

here, you acknowledge that this is a more walkable district and you should be slowing down your car and we should be having uh you know traffic uh you know traffic regimes that that respect the downtown feel. Again, this was the you know three years ago we worried about keeping keeping these funds in the downtown. There's so much more to work to do before the CRA expiration. We really need to start planning this now. This is something we said. The longer we wait, the less money the CRA and the tax increment financing gets to have and the more expensive it's going to be because construction costs do not go down. They only go up. So, we do need this planning to start no matter what happens with that vote. We do need this planning to start right away. So again, it it's it's interesting to refresh your recollection after three years to see how some things changed and some things haven't, but to see how things things how long things take to get done and the CRA we're trying to do that and uh I've been very pleased to be a part of it. So without anything further, we'll journ this meeting and at 3:40 and return for a workshop soon thereafter.

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Good afternoon and welcome to a workshop meeting of the Boca Raton City Council. It is Monday, February 23rd, 2026. The time is 3:51 p.m. We have no proclamations nor any board interviews today. So, return to future agenda matters. Councils, council members, anything to raise? Uh, mayor, nothing beyond what we already mentioned, which is the postponement of those three ordinances. Yes. Very well. Thank you. Uh, then and then do we have any review of any items for review of regular agenda items? If not, we'll take them up tomorrow night. So, on the floor to public request, I have two cards. One from Andrea Lavinoor, one from Kevin Meanie. Then after that, please come forward. Give your name and address. You'll have up to three minutes.

Andrea Lavinoor, 100 Southeast Fifth Avenue, Boca Raton. I'm going to continue where I left off. Um, and I'm going to talk about the ballot question. Four of you agreed that it was fair and unbiased. I beg to disagree. It's simply not. It's just not. And when questioned, your reasoning was the citizens are smart enough to figure it out. Um, and yet the citizens are constantly admonished for not having the the correct detail. So I think that to have put the ballot question with reasonable fair d you know uh verbiage would have been just much fairer much more open and again the truth matters and it's just not a truthful statement that ballot question while I have the minute I just want to say uh because I was going to talk about the um the three ordinances and I'm so glad that you put that aside that needs some major work and by the way let's not forget our downtown master plan that was updated in 2007. It needs more work, but we have a really good foundation here, so we shouldn't forget about that. It's important. We've done a lot of the work. We just need to follow through with it. Uh this past uh school semester, I had the opportunity of working with graduate students at FAU in the urban planning program. Uh our future planners, the very talent that we say we want to attract and retain in Boca Raton. They were so eager to engage in a downtown discussion. They worked all semester on their plan. They have a beautiful presentation. I will share the link with all of you. And yet when they were they were scheduled to do an outreach uh for their downtown planning session, it was part of their project. They were refused uh to to be able to meet at the community center in our very own community center in Boca Raton. Our FAU students were turned down. We ended up securing the room through a land use attorney that we were working with and she meets with with residents for projects that they're approving. She was able to rent secure and rent the room so

the students could do their public outreach. When they tried to do it through the university, they were actually turned down. So I don't understand where we are with community involvement, collaboration. We should embrace the university students. We should embrace residents that have good ideas. There needs to be community outreach. P uh business outreach. Our downtown businesses should be involved. 4035 is crucial. These three ordinances coming forward are probably the most important zoning issues we will have worked on in 30 years. We need to get it right. Let's not follow this path of of putting the the the horse before the cart. Uh shooting before we aim. Let's aim first. Let's plan first. I always said, "What's the plan? Let's do it." But I will support you 100% if we do it right. I'm here to help. Thank you very much,

Miss Borrow. Judy Morrow.

Yes. Hello, my name is Judy Mororrow, 1305 Northeast 5th Avenue. Thank you for postponing the three ordinances. Very much appreciated. Um, thank you Andy for explaining so well. Um, you know, cuz we like to keep things the way they are. Um, and I have a question. Who owns the sky? Who owns the sky? So when you buy land, you know, they can change the zoning on land. The city can call, you know, imminent domain. There's all kinds of exceptions. There's land right on on Bokeh Beach that was supposed to be protected that was, you know, on the shoreline and the developers came four times to the city as I remember and they finally got permission to build the house on the beach that should have never been built on that land. So, it it's kind of sad. Um, and I understand Florida law SB uh 180. I understand live local. But before maybe when you rewrite the ordinances or amend them or whatever you going to do to them, think about the whole city needs to fix

the underground water pipes so we don't have the problem like Fort Lickarddale, Fort Lauderdale. Um there's things that need to be done before you just keep going up up up. And um we have some very good people that are running March 10th. And I very much hope that people vote no for the um the ballot question. I really do not appreciate after Andy took the time 10 minutes to explain a neutral ordinance, a a neutral ballot question, which is very simple to understand and very nice that you all made it prodeveloper. So, please vote no to save our public land. Thank you,

Miss Mara. I think you'll be pleased to know that the city puts great planning into our underground infrastructure. You can come up, Miss Pashki. Including our $850 million ISIP program. That's $850 million over 15 years without a bond increase, without a bond issuance, and without a tax increase. So, we're constantly planning to avoid the problems of other cities. As a result, we've got a water rate that's 16th lower than some what some other cities charge. Miss Pashki.

Okay. Pam Pashki, 341 Southwest 2nd Street. So, I have just a couple slides I want to show you. Um, and this is about the downtown uh development proposal for the east side of Northwest 2nd Avenue. Okay, so this is the hours of sunlight. I found this online and this is for Boca Raton and it tells you for the whole year. The num the letters at the bottom are the numbers of the months. Um, this tells you when the sun comes up. That's the dark blue part. That's the sunrise. And then the the dusk is the red part. And the hours are along the side. So you can see that we get a lot of sunlight in the summer and a little bit less in the winter. And then the question is, if you build 12story buildings, let's say 135 ft across the street from our park, and I talked about this before, but I actually went and did a little research that this is the shadow cast by the 135 foot building at different times of the day. Now, the percent the degrees along the bottom are the sun coming up from the horizon. So, when it hits 90, that's about the middle of the day. So that's what I'm showing you here from sunrise to the middle of the day. And on the left I showed you how wide if you're if the sun is in full, you know, right now the sun is kind of in the south. Um but if it's in the in the middle, this would this shadow would be cast across the park and the park with the street and both sidewalks on both sides is about 680 ft. So at 10° which would be around so sunrise is zero. So 10° is about an hour to an hour later give or take. And

then you keep going down the degrees till you get to um what at 50 at 90° it's about noon in the in the winter months when we're on regular time and about 1:30 in the summer when we're on daylight savings time. So, it gives you kind of an idea as the morning progresses how much sun is over top of our park. So, the point that I'm making here is we've saved the park, I hope, but we haven't saved the sunlight for the park. And parks, if you think about it, all of us who have kids who've been in sports or whatever, there's dew, there's sprinklers, there's rain, and if the sun doesn't come up on that grass, it doesn't dry out. So, we're going to have soggy park land till midday, let's say, till the sun has time to burn it off. And one of the things I asked in my request in my email was that the city council commits to developing doing some betterments to the city park, memorial park that have nothing to do with Bokeh 1, regardless of whether this passes or doesn't pass that you will commit that you are going to do something with the park.

Thank you. Anyone else Jonathan 6501 Congress Avenue. Uh so Miss Pashki actually was the one who made a great point but got me the most upset with Save Bokeh. uh was about the sunlight. Although it is after about 10 o'clock that it will be getting sun for the rest of the day as it sets to the west. But I was thinking how disingenuous it was of save bokeh that they had a voice. They fought so hard to get a voice and then they didn't want to use it to maybe make the buildings five stories here or seven stories there or whatever it is that may be less impactful for the community. Instead, it was terminate, terminate, terminate, terminate, terminate. And sure, it wouldn't have made the city as much money. It wouldn't have made the developer as much money, but it would have been what was fitting for the community, but that was never what it was really about. It was about a political agenda and an election. And the more impactful of a development, the more people would be riled up. And uh I believe that that's what it's about. So I want to comment on the two comments. That's the one. The second is is first off to your all point that you did approve the beach development finally after four times. That was because the courts actually said that they had to. So I think that point is not being said. That was because the courts said they had to. Lastly, save uh the SB 102, not 180, is

something that I put an application under and I promise if there is a change in leadership in the first month, I will file that lawsuit on SB 102 regarding development because that is a given right by this state. And people think that they're running saying they're going to watch development. You're going to make for worse, more impactful development across this city. I haven't filed that lawsuit because I've been hoping that I had a council that I could convince and and get to consider the part of town that makes the most sense to develop, which is here. And I think we were getting to that point before this whole mess got created. But I can promise you with a change in council that first month I will file a lawsuit on SP 102 to say that the density of the downtown is the density that any property owner should have those development rights on. And you'll have another thing coming. I promise you that. Thank you.

Anyone else? Last call. I missed. Okay. Do Do you want to speak? I missed what you said and I don't want to. All right. Then we'll close the time for public request and um we'll turn to city manager reports. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh just one quick note. Uh, our last final police department headquarters public workshop is this Wednesday, uh, February 25th from 2 to 3:30 p.m. at Spanish River Library. Again, this Wednesday, February 25th, 2 to 3:30 p.m. That's all I have, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. City attorney reports, no report. Thank you. Council member reports starting on my left, please. Mr. Thompson, no report. Thank you, Mayor. Miss Nicholas,

no report. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Ducker.

I'm going to give a short report tonight today instead of tomorrow. Um, I had the opportunity last last week uh to go on uh the America I'm going to do a lot of transit updates uh on the America 250 train on Bright Line. Uh they wrapped one of the Bright Line trains. Uh it's the first one in the entire country. So the RFP went out the request from the US Department of Transportation to uh wrap the train and they went ahead and wrapped the train and I want to thank Mr. Soy for joining me that I had invited uh veterans and they had invited any other community leaders that wanted to participate. So we went on Bright Line on the new inaugural America 250 train on President's Day. Um and I had we had the opportunity to hear straight uh from the horse's mouth and I know a lot of people sitting in this room say that Bright Line is going under. Uh and I've been saying it all along. Bright Line is not going under. So, I I had a conversation with Patrick Godard, who's the president of uh Bright Line um organization, and they're so excited about our station. They're excited about possibly the second platform to our station, and more importantly, they're so excited for Coastal Connection, and you could do your own research, but that's kind of a commuter rail that would also run on the same rail as uh Bright Line. And I also had the opportunity to meet uh we did the new CEO, Nicholas Petrovic, who comes from Euroar. If you guys know, Euroar is out of Europe and lately and the last uh post that he had uh was in Abu Dhabi where he created and and and planned for the passenger commuter rail. So, incredible innovation and just speaking to these two gentlemen um last week uh you know was kind of one of the highlights of the week just to understand rail and how much money is being put into rail. I also sit on the NLC, National League of Cities, I mentioned on their transit and infrastructure, and we're getting ready to reauthorize the bipartisan bill. And I can tell you rail, space, and naval, maritime, um, buildings, uh, ships, etc. are all trying to be funded. Um, and

particularly a lot of that funding coming into Florida because of the growth that the state continues to see. So, uh, just a lot of things happening, um, that that are going to impact us in the good way. Also, I'm happy to report and I know we we got some of this from our lobbyists, but I got this from um uh last week from another meeting that I sit on the MO as their chair. Uh SFRTA, other known as Tri Rail, um was funded on both sides, the House and the Senate, have put it back in the budget. There have been conversations that they were not going to fund Tri Rail and Tri Rail was going under. Well, I got news for you. Rail is really important, not only here in Florida, but throughout. Uh so, the funding has been put in place. Again, I also wanted to use this opportunity um because he is leaving our organization or the SFRTA. Uh Dave Deck was the executive director of the last few years. It's going to be a tremendous loss uh to Tri Rail. I want to wish him and his wife Kathy uh good luck uh in your next uh journey. Uh also, um I sat through a robust conversation, Deputy Mayor, uh Deputy Mayor NASA and I on ebikes uh with the Florida legislature. There is some legislation out there. They're looking at ebike. There's a lot of conversation around ebike. More to come on that. Uh and there's if you want to hear it, you could go back to the no meeting. Also, March is bicycle month. Um we're going to have a proclamation tomorrow and I know we're going to have a ride and I think it's on Saturday, March 21st. I believe that's what I was told, but I'm sure it's going to be up on our um website. And then lastly, I wanted to give a quick uh legislative update because a lot of things have happened since last Thursday. um uh bill HJR which is h house joint resolution 203 which is Florida property tax. So we have been talking for weeks. This is week six on Thursday. This Thursday is 45th day of the legislature. I'll be in Tallahassee. It's going to be a very busy Thursday Friday up there. So I'm I'm going to be there this the end of the week. Uh they went ahead and they were talking about the the plan out of

the eight proposals that started from day one. They had one plan that would um do a 10-year phase out and it wouldn't touch police or fire or the schools. Well, last Thursday um they removed the 10-year phase out. So, it was a total elimination of Homestead. Uh and that was last Thursday. Uh I shared the information with Mr. Sohaney who's going to share with the council and staff. And if any of you, you could go online and you could see the discussion that happened. What'll happen now is they're going to the Senate is meeting and they're going through conversations. Uh we believe that they are going to come up with their own plan along with the governor and that they will call a special um session on the continuence of property tax. So there is a lot going on in the House and in the Senate. What we were told um this morning in our Florida League of Cities call that I sit on every Monday was to now um not only contact your senators but also contact your house representatives because they're now having a lot to do with what is going to happen with the elimination of the full um fa no phase out but just the full elimination of homestead property tax. So if I have anything else tomorrow I will come back and update because things are happening very very quickly uh in Tallahassee. And with that, I will say thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Reader.

Yeah, briefly just to follow up with Mr. Ducker. Um, my understanding from talking with Mr. Zervis, Mr. Soy and the presentations that were made previously is that if HR 203 goes through as stated that it uh and it's an immediate um you know and an immediate uh elimination of homestead property taxes that that will significantly affect our budget negatively uh by the tune of $58 million in the first uh in the first year. And obviously Bokeh is very blessed because approximately 50% of our tax base is commercial. Um but there's going to be many many cities throughout the state um that will have significant challenges including Boca Raton of how we um how we plan around that. It's not something that's just going to be made up with uh you know with new revenues and new fees. It's going to have some serious serious consequences and we're going to have to manage that thoroughly. So, uh, obviously there'll be a lot of discussion depending on what happens with the Senate and what happens with the, uh, election up in November when they, uh, if they put it to the, uh, put it to a ballot. But, uh, a lot more conversation to be had there. So, thank you, M. Ducker, for following up on on that as well. And lastly, on a positive note, I forgot to mention in my CRA report that um, this week starts our Festival of the Arts downtown. And uh Miss Anderson, I apologize that uh that so yes, starting this weekend uh the 27th, we have our beautiful festival festival of the arts. Amazing amazing events. Um it's advertised. Obviously, this is in the Suns Sentinel uh this morning and uh it's all over the uh internet. So you can go to myboke us or downtown bokeh.org and see all the events there. The links are there and so you could buy tickets. Lots of great events starting this weekend going throughout the week, the first week of March. So, please uh go downtown and uh enjoy all the great arts uh arts activities that we're going to have

there. Nothing further. Thank you.

Thank you. And I'll pick up there because I was going to mention it well as well. Festival bokeh.org where you can get tickets to see Postmodern Jukebox, Jurassic Park with live orchestra, Patty Leone, Conrad Towel doing Map City and Blue, the author's ideas series, and much more. Also, that first week of March is the James Hardy Pro Football Hall of Fame Invitational. So, we'll have 78 of the world's best senior golfers here along with more than two dozen Hall of Fame Pro Football Hall of Fame legends coming to Boca Raton. Another fun event. Uh, I wanted to thank Florida Atlantic University because on short notice, we were able to secure the sole Freedom 250 truck, the mobile museum that's going around to celebrate uh our nation's independence as part of our 250th anniversary. It just concluded a few minutes ago at Meisner Park, excuse me, at FAU, but we had it out there from Friday to Monday and this is uh we got one of the stops and they gave it to us on short notice. Thank you to Florida Atlantic University for finding a home. And just want to say we have so many positive things going in. Yes, it's our nation's 250th anniversary. This is the greatest nation our country, the greatest nation the world has ever seen. And I don't know of any city greater than Boca Raton. Um whether we're talking about the hard work of all of our city staff and how we plan for infrastructure or the culture and the vibrancy we have or the demand we have of people wanting to come here um or public safety which we continues to win awards and crime is down 25 a.5% over the last seven years from what were 40-year lows. There are so many things to love about this city and so I want people to bear that in mind. Um there is an election upcoming soon. And I encourage everyone to vote, but I want everyone to vote whether or not you have a particular concern about or one issue that you seem fixated on to the exclusion of others. Please bear in mind all of the wonderful things that are part of our city. You're part of our city and we're grateful for you being here. If there's nothing further, we are adjourned at 4:15. Thank you.