Palm Beach County approves The District, two other commercial developments in Ag Reserve

The commercial corridor along Boynton Beach Boulevard in the Agricultural Reserve will soon look very different.

Palm Beach County commissioners recently approved three large-scale commercial projects, two of them across the street from each other on the boulevard at the Acme Dairy Road intersection.

One of the projects, The District, will feature indoor pickleball courts, a fitness center, a microbrewery with a tap room, warehouses and a storage facility that will have lockers for expensive wines. Construction could begin by the middle of next year. It will be built on 47.2 acres.

To make it happen, county commissioners had to approve a land-use and zoning change, which they voted unanimously on Aug. 24 to do. Two prominent South Florida developers, the Channing Corporation and the Butters Group, will now move forward with their building plans.

“This is what the Ag Reserve master plan anticipated when it was drawn up more than 20 years ago,” said County Commissioner Maria Sachs. “It recognized that commercial development would and should occur along Boynton Beach Boulevard and Atlantic Avenue. The people living in the Ag Reserve need to have services available to them without having to go east.”

Channing said he and his partner, Malcom Butters, worked with the area residents to give them what they wanted. The result was a project that received widespread support, said Channing, adding: "We basically ripped up our original site plan."

The plans were developed in consultation with two residents groups, the Coalition of Boynton West Residential Associations and the Boynton Ag Reserve Communities.

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Supporters attended the meeting wearing buttons saying: "Meet me at the District." Rachel Shapiro, who lives nearby in one of the four Canyons developments, urged a yes vote: saying: “We deserve more than just a Starbucks and a Chipotle.”

The project is one of the first to be approved through the new “Commerce” designation in the Ag Reserve that allows for more dense commercial development along Boynton Beach Boulevard and Atlantic Avenue west of Florida's Turnpike.

BARC called the project a welcome addition to the Ag Reserve, noting that the amenities it will offer are not currently available. The landscaping and streetscape will “add a much-needed upgrade” to the Boynton Beach corridor, it said in a letter to the county.

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COBWRA representative Dagmar Brahs said the organization saw merit to the project but objected to the height of the self-storage building. BARC, though, agreed to support taller buildings in exchange for having them located farther away from homes at Canyon Trail. The dispute caused a rift to develop between the two groups that resulted in the Canyon communities withdrawing from COBWRA this year.

Channing said he expects the facility to open within two years.

Logan Ranch will feature apartments, workforce housing

On the south side of Boynton Beach Boulevard will be Logan Ranch, a residential community that would include apartments and possibly townhouses. At the meeting, the developer said 314 residences are planned, with most of them apartments with 79 of them set aside as workforce housing.

Plans call for six four-story buildings and seven two-story buildings. The smaller ones would contain the townhouses.

The Logan Ranch project is the first to be approved under the recently designed essential housing category, which was created to allow for high-density housing along major corridors in the Ag Reserve.

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Jennifer Morton, the project's agent, noted that the developer, like the Channing/Butters group, worked with community groups to gain support.

The apartment buildings were moved farther away from nearby Canyon Trails, a decision that helped it gain a BARC endorsement. But COBWRA, just as it did with The District development, conditioned its support on reducing the height of the four-story buildings to three stories. County commissioners, however, approved the project with the four-story buildings.

Morton said the approval will result in quality housing being provided in the area and that the housing is urgently needed.

Also approved Thursday was a land-use change on 8 acres on the west side of State Road 7 near Atlantic Avenue. The builder expects to construct warehouses and office space on the parcel. The project can be no more than 155,000 square feet. The builder said there is a need for light industrial uses to serve the area's increasing residential population.

Mike Diamond is a journalist at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. He covers Palm Beach County government and transportation. You can reach him at mdiamond@pbpost.com. Help support local journalism. Subscribe today

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: County signs off on The District, two other Ag Reserve projects