Plotting the evolution of Lake Park's downtown with apartments, shops, pocket parks and vibe
LAKE PARK — Mayor Roger Michaud stands in front of an aging squat pink building at Park Avenue and Tenth Street. It once housed Barbie’s Place, a breakfast-and-lunch restaurant where he worked as a highschooler, but the place is now empty.
Michaud can’t help but grin over their paths once again intersecting.
A developer has proposed a high-rise retail and residential tower where the mayor once washed dishes. And now Michaud leads the Town Council that may decide the future of the site that sits at the gateway to downtown.
Michaud is the kind of person who waves to every driver who motors by and tries to meet as many residents as he can. He envisions downtown as that kind of place, where young people can enjoy a night out and families can go for a meal and a stroll.
“The original planners of this town wanted to make downtown walkable,” said Michaud, now 48. “I want to recreate that vibe again. It’s beautiful to walk around here at night and see businesses light up this area that’s transitioning. We want businesses with different styles and flavors.”
Capitalizing on Lake Park location
Since the end of summer, the town has received “a handful” of inquiries from small businesses every day, seeking to open shops in the 95 storefronts that line Park Avenue, said Nadia Di Tommaso, the town’s community development director.
She credits the interest to the town’s location between West Palm Beach and Palm Beach Gardens and its plentiful waterfront access.
The downtown has a 70% occupancy rate, and town officials are aiming to fill the other 30%.
The town’s marketing department has ramped up its work with the Palm Beach North Chamber of Commerce and the Business Development Board of Palm Beach County to spread the word about vacant spaces on social media and at events in the area.
However, the town has faced challenges luring some businesses because the downtown area is still evolving, said Di Tommaso.
“It’s difficult to actually see the change until the change occurs,” she said. “We have some buildings under construction and some that have ground-floor vacant spaces. It’s difficult for someone driving by to understand that (we are growing) until they see a little bit more activity.”
Visions of what's to come to Lake Park's downtown
When Michaud was 10 years old, downtown wasn’t much more than a flea market and a few eateries, including an Italian restaurant: Camilli's Pizza, which is there to this day.
“Time changes everything,” Michaud said. “Downtown went through its ups and downs, but as we stand now, it's taken a turn for the positive. I only see better things ahead.”
When the owners of Barbie’s Place sold the property to a developer over the past year, it left a void in the town, Michaud said.
Town planners are now reviewing applications from developers who want to build a 16-story building at the site and another tower of the same height across the street. Both would have retail on their first floors and apartments above them.
The buildings wouldn’t rise as tall as the two 24-story Nautilus 220 condo towers going up at Cypress and Lake Shore drives, but they would be the tallest buildings downtown, dwarfing the two buildings that top out at three stories.
It’s not clear when the plans for the former restaurant site would go before Lake Park boards for action.
Apart from the proposed towers, Michaud has other hopes for Park Avenue. He would like to see a new breakfast place open downtown, along with another pub to join The Brewhouse Gallery and Locale Gastropub, a theater and more restaurants.
He’d also like a tenant for the historic Kelsey Theatre, which has been vacant since May, when the Lake Park Black Box closed its operation.
Town officials have hoped to welcome more arts-based businesses since the Black Box moved out and shut down without notifying the town first, according to Di Tommaso.
“Now that Lake Park Black Box is gone, we’re missing that historical piece to the downtown, which is that performing arts center,” Di Tommaso said. “I think any arts and entertainment district should have that component. Right now, we're missing that.”
The company, which also operates a Black Box in suburban Boca Raton, did not respond to a request for comment.
Mecca Performance Institute, a Lake Park-based martial arts gym, has applied to open a location at the 300-seat theater where the Black Box had been since late 2020, but the application has not yet been approved.
And another element to downtown turning up just a few steps away: a pocket park. It will sit on about a tenth of an acre directly behind the theater along Seventh Street and is set to open next month.
The town also plans to use about $600,000 in funds it received from a federal grant to give downtown a facelift.
Crews will repave its sidewalks and roads and plant trees in the median strips between the businesses and roads, said Town Manager John D’Agostino.
Full steam ahead: Will Lake Park get a Tri-Rail stop too?
D’Agostino and Michaud want to start discussions for their long-term dream of a Tri-Rail stop in town. The railway’s northernmost point is now in Mangonia Park and there are no official plans to expand northward, according to a Tri-Rail spokesperson.
D’Agostino and Michaud also hope to bring a community center to town in two years.
They say they would like the town to consider placing the community center, along with some soccer fields, at the site of the town’s baseball field on Bayberry Drive and Sixth Street.
When his son and daughter were young, Michaud brought them to the recreation center in Palm Beach Gardens to play basketball, which he seasonally coached.
“At the time, costs were high for my growing family, and the recreation center was an easy way to help my kids get out there and play sports,” Michaud said. “The first thing I said to (the town manager) when I became a commissioner was, ‘We need a community center.’ We need something here for the town to frequent, recreate and meet each other.”
Michaud expects the town with nearly 9,000 residents to grow to 10,000 within the next year. With each decision he makes, he considers his young adult daughter who might move back one day.
“I look at this as setting up things for my future,” Michaud said. “I’d like to have some things here for my daughter to consider coming back home to. These new projects coming here could bring in young couples and a wave of new residents that enjoy what we have.”
These businesses plan to open in town
Oceana Coffee plans to open at 1301 10th St. — just north of downtown — no later than December.
Empire Landscaping plans to open on 13th Street in the industrial part of town in late 2024.
Texas Roadhouse plans to build at 280 North Congress Ave., near the Lake Park Culver’s, in May.
Cheesecake Concoctions and Poshy Noshy Concoctions intend to open a bakery and neighboring cafe in two storefronts on the ground floor at 801 Park Ave. in March.
The SeaHawk Prime by David Burke restaurant plans to open at 220 Lake Shore Drive at the Nautilus 220 mixed-use highrise no later than December.
Buck’s Coal Fired Pizza expects to open at 900 Northlake Blvd. east of 10th Street in February.
Putting Lake Park on the map with local businesses
The town is attracting people like Sandy Woloshin, 70, and her daughter, Heather James, 47, who moved to Lake Park in July.
They plan to open their bakery, Cheesecake Concoctions, and cafe, Poshy Noshy Concoctions, downtown.
They want to sell their homemade cheesecake, soups, salads and sandwiches at the One Park Place building. Its first floor of retail space has been vacant since it was first constructed in 2005.
Woloshin and James say they are in the final negotiating stages of negotiating a lease.
Their former bakery location was in Seagrape Square along Indiantown Road in Jupiter, which they closed in February 2023 after almost two years at the storefront.
The One Park Place building has 20 apartments that are all occupied. Di Tommaso said that shops never opened on its first floor because the owner of the building never fully built out the storefronts.
“Lake Park is growing, but it hasn't gotten enough recognition,” James said.
The owner of Oceana Coffee announced Friday that its headquarters will move from Tequesta to the Lake Park location now under construction and due to open by the end of the year. The space will host a coffee shop, as well as a beverage-canning facility and a commercial kitchen.
D’Agostino said he often thinks back to the day he started his job at the town in 2015.
He ordered a coffee at the Dunkin’ Donuts in town on his break. When the cashier saw his nametag, she asked, “Where’s Lake Park?”
“I told the woman that we were in Lake Park, and she never knew that,” D’Agostino said. “I said, ‘We’re going to change that.’”
Maya Washburn covers northern Palm Beach County for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida-Network. Reach her atmwashburn@pbpost.com. Support local journalism:Subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Lake Park downtown in the midst of evolution in business, housing
