Will Brightline lure new development in downtown Boca? Here are the latest plans.
Downtown Boca Raton’s new Brightline station is being positioned as catalyst for growth — with the goal of building up a transit-oriented destination that will offer more new housing, stores and plenty more.
The Boca Raton station, at 101 NW 4th St., and a station in Aventura each opened in December last year, increasing the number of South Florida stations from three to five. Resembling the babies of the family, the newer stations are expected to mimic their sibling stations, which opened in 2018 in West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Miami. The older stations already have drawn growth and redevelopment around them.
“The Brightline is hugely instrumental into the growth of Boca Raton because now you can have somebody who’s working down in Miami can live ‘in the suburbs’ up here,” said Scott Gerow, the executive director of luxury sales at the Cotilla-Beresh-Gerow Luxury Team at Compass. “Now it makes it more of a commutable region, like Long Island or Connecticut would be to Manhattan.”
Jenni Morejon, the president and CEO of the Fort Lauderdale Downtown Development Authority, added, “Every city that has a Brightline station either today, or ultimately a commuter rail station in the future, is going to see tremendous mixed-use development because it is truly a driver for investment.”
Here’s a look at how growth is bound to come near Boca’s Brightline station.
A 13-story building proposed
Evidence of a future defined by development already may be making an appearance: A proposal, recently filed with the city, calls for a 13-story multi-use project called Modera Boca Raton that would feature a 358-unit apartment building near the station.
The plan calls for about 6,500 square feet of retail space, as well as nearly 490 parking spots. The planned amenities would include a clubhouse, fitness center, courtyard, rooftop pool and sundeck.
Behind the proposal is Mill Creek Residential, a developer with a strong presence across South Florida. Some of its projects are in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Davie and Coral Springs.
Mill Creek Residential could not be reached for comment. In the application, the company wrote its “overall intent (is) to create an improved experience to residents and visitors to Boca Raton as they arrive on the Brightline.”
The project would be located immediately south of the Brightline station specifically west of Northwest Second Avenue, east of Northwest First Avenue, south of Northwest Fourth Street, and north of Northwest Third Street. The Boca Raton Public Library sits nearby.
Will the proposal move forward? A nearby business is Boca Color Graphics, which sits on part of the property where the project would rise. Michael Massarella, the president of Boca Color Graphics, said no contract exists. So the status of the plan remains in question.
Plans for the area surrounding the rail station are bright, the city says. “The city’s top strategic priority is a master plan for our governmental campus that would incorporate other uses as well as compatible and complementary to the Brightline station,” Boca Raton Mayor Scott Singer said.
Singer said he and the rest of the City Council anticipate interest from the public and private sector in forging partnerships with the city to create facilities around the Brightline. “It’s easy to envision this as being a destination,” he said.
A consultant’s help
The city is seeking a consultant to guide the creation of the “transit-orientated development” that the area currently lacks, said Marc Wigder, chair of the Boca Raton Community Redevelopment Agency.
Such a “consultant would help the city design a sustainable, transit-oriented district with a mixture of uses that would highlight the transit hub, would highlight the government center hub, and would highlight the ability to not be so vehicular dominated,” he said.
“That’s kind of what you want, transit-oriented development that enables neighborhood feelings without vehicular dependency.”
The aim is to achieve what Wigder said is called an “internal capture,” wherein people don’t have to drive everywhere, underscoring the live, work, play concept he and other members of the council have continued to push for in Boca Raton’s downtown scape.
Public input will also play a role, Wigder said, and will be gathered over the next several months.
The biggest hurdle is finding land to develop, said Scott Pressman, a senior associate with The Keyes Co., a real estate company working across the tri-county area.
“It’s not an easy process, but I think you’ll see the big growth,” he said. “There’s a lot of things in the planning stage, probably in the next two to four or three to five years, you’ll see some good growth over there.”
Repurposing of pre-existing properties plays a role in achieving that feat, he said. “They (developers) always find a way to build somewhere,” he said. “Creative developers always find a way to do it.”
Other stations’ successes
Thriving examples of growth around Brightline stations exist both north and south of Boca’s station.
Take Fort Lauderdale, for example: Since its station opened in 2018, the city’s downtown population has seen an increase of more than 10,000 people and 5,000 new rental units, according to data from the Fort Lauderdale Downtown Development Authority.
In November, the Broward County Commission voted to build a new government center next to the Fort Lauderdale station, bolstering the potential growth there.
Morejon, the Downtown Development Authority’s president, said a transit-oriented development takes care of any and all needs of the residents or employees living in that area.
And while Fort Lauderdale experiences a similar issue to Boca Raton in terms of finding land to develop, Morejon said a solution to that is developing more efficiently.
“You really have to go vertical. A lot of it is about redeveloping properties that already have existing development,” she said. “And that’s not a bad thing because it makes for more compact cities, more walkable cities, cities that have a lot more amenities in close proximity.”
