Boca Raton City Council Workshop Summary – September 8, 2025
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Boca Raton City Council Workshop Summary – September 8, 2025
The Boca Raton City Council held a workshop meeting on Monday, September 8, 2025, at 2:10 PM. The agenda included a presentation on Wildflower Park activation, board interviews, public requests, a review of regular agenda items, and a detailed discussion on the Government Campus Redevelopment Partnership Opportunity with Terra Frisbee. Council members also heard several public comments and provided updates.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Gary Lennell (representing himself and as executive director of a local nonprofit, also a gardener at Susan Weldschool Community Garden) expressed shock that the city had a plan to potentially relocate the community garden as part of the government campus project. He urged transparency and asked that the garden not be moved, noting the thousands of dollars and years of work invested by his nonprofit and gardeners.
- John Perlman (490 NE A Street) criticized the proposed removal of the community garden, compared it to the closure of Gumbo Limbo center, and argued that the empty lot at Palmetto Park Road and NE Fifth Avenue hinders Wildflower Park activation. He also claimed the city paid millions above fair market value for the Yamato office building and called for the city to acquire the Palmetto lot. He opposed plans to demolish the shaded playground at Lake Wyman Park.
- Judy Morrow (1305 NE Fifth Avenue) spoke in favor of keeping the downtown post office open, praised Wildflower Park, and suggested simple activation like a DJ on Friday nights. She also expressed concerns about parking meters at the post office and asked for better community outreach on the government campus plan.
- Jonathan Unjin (6501 Congress Avenue) questioned the city's use of the confidentiality exemption and lack of an appraisal for the Yamato property purchase, citing Florida Statute 166.045. He criticized CBRE for representing both sides and urged more community engagement.
- Brett Lassen (10th Court) thanked Terra Frisbee for listening but remained concerned about additional traffic from the government campus plan, especially impacts on neighborhoods like Lake Floresta and Old Floresta. He asked for further density reductions.
- Martha Parker (64 NW 7th Street) asked for clarification on recreation facility mapping, noted confusion from moving facilities, and urged the council to stop relocating amenities until plans are finalized.
- Buffy Tucker (431 NE 10th Terrace) expressed distrust, noting the public had not seen a final plan and that 5,200 residents signed a petition over the summer. She thanked Councilmember Thompson for consistent opposition and criticized how citizens were treated earlier in the process.
- Holly Shuttler (264 NW 7th Court) questioned why the city doesn't renovate City Hall and the community center itself, instead of leasing public land for 99 years. She wanted an appraisal of the 31-acre campus.
- John Perlman (speaking again) accused Terra of dishonesty regarding litigation history, argued the plan privatizes a World War II memorial park, reduces recreation, and destroys historic ball fields. He urged the council to reject the plan.
Discussion Items
- Wildflower Park Activation Presentation: Staff presented plans to activate Wildflower Park with passive programs (public art, pavilion reservations), vendor-led programs (food trucks, acoustic music), staff-led programming (monthly recreation field days, pop-up events), and volunteer opportunities (butterfly garden, run/walk clubs). Future considerations include playground upgrades, shade coverings, and metered parking to prevent abuse. A timeline targets daily programming by 2026. Councilmembers expressed support for faster action, with Councilmember Drucker urging bold decisions and noting the park cost approximately $25 million. Councilmember Acklass asked about alternatives to metered parking. Councilmember Wigder highlighted the need for accessible playgrounds and bike amenities. Councilmember Thompson observed that activation is already happening organically.
- Silver Palm Underpass Update: Public Works Director Zach Beer reported on infrastructure work under the bridge connecting Wildflower and Silver Palm parks. Scope includes painting, decorative fencing, color-changing uplighting, and four murals on columns. Completion expected by end of October 2025, pending weather and county approvals. Councilmember Drucker noted the three-year effort to get county approval.
- Government Campus Redevelopment Partnership Opportunity: Terra and Frisbee presented a revised plan for the downtown campus, with significant reductions from previous proposals: residential units lowered from 900 to 740, retail from ~140,000 to ~80,000 sq ft, removal of a hotel and one office building, preservation of all six banyan trees, relocation of the children's playground under banyans, creation of a memorial park with a monument, eight tennis courts (clay) with potential for covered courts, a mobility hub, and a new community center with indoor gym. The project is projected to generate over $2 billion in gross revenue over the 99-year lease ($228 million net present value). The developers emphasized that the plan is iterative and they will hold public workshops on September 29 and October 6, 2025. Councilmembers generally appreciated the changes but noted they were seeing the plan for the first time and needed more time to evaluate. Councilmember Wigder and others stated the original October 28, 2025 timeline is unrealistic. Councilmember Thompson reiterated his call for a public vote. Staff noted that traffic and infrastructure analysis will need to be updated due to the changes.
- Councilmember Reports: Councilmember Wigder presented demographic data showing Boca Raton's slow and steady growth (1.5% annual new construction over 10 years), with an average age decreasing. He emphasized the need to preserve neighborhoods, focus growth near transit (Brightline, Tri-Rail), and explore funding mechanisms for parks and attainable housing.
Key Outcomes
- Wildflower Park: Council encouraged staff to expedite activation programming, with no formal vote.
- Government Campus Timeline: Council reached consensus that the October 28, 2025 vote will not occur and the upcoming Planning & Zoning meeting (September 23) will be postponed. Public workshops are scheduled for September 29 and October 6, 2025.
- Regular Agenda: Martin Manor (Dixie Manor phase 2) postponed to a date no later than November 4, 2025, after the applicant requested additional dialogue with the DISC group.
- Board Interviews: No applicants were present for the four boards; appointments will be made at the regular meeting on September 9, 2025.
Meeting Transcript
Good afternoon and welcome to a workshop meeting of the Boca Raton City Council. It is Monday, September 8th, 2025. The time is 210. Our first item of business today is a presentation on the activation of Wildflower Park. Mr. Brown. Thank you, Mayor. Greg Stevens, Stephanie Lucia, and Zach Beer are going to make presentations regarding the activation of Wildflower Park and our infrastructure work under the bridge at Wildflower Silver Palm. We're looking forward to the presentation. Thank you, Mr. Brown. Good afternoon, Mayor, Council. Before I dive into the presentation, I just want to take a moment to share that over the past few months we've started working with an in-house committee on our um on our programming. We have recruited a number of uh talented and uh dedicated professionals in the in the programming field. And one of our uh well, our our focus is going to be assessing all programs throughout recreation services, determining um their viability today, as well as um how tune we are, how in tune we are with trends and and community needs. And the first uh uh the first order on our uh on our agenda was uh and is uh uh activating the Wildflower Park. Okay, so to help guide us, we established a vision, um, something that we think is in connection with the public, um, knowing that health and wellness is a focus today, knowing the the the needs for more, the need for more fitness classes um in light of what we're doing with public art, um we set forth keeping this in mind that we're we're trying to you know bring a space to residents that focus on that focuses on fitness art and community experiences. Some of the things um we we kept uh as far as consideration as we as we examine different programs, again, the focus on health and wellness, looking to uh encourage healthy lifestyles, um being cognizant of the location of Wildflower in relation to to the downtown in relation to Meisner Amphitheater, um supporting local business, uh again listening to the community and and getting a really good sense of what they're looking for and being flexible. So trying to meet different needs for uh you know for for our residents. When we program, we typically have classifications of how we do so. So we have everything from passive programs, which we can which we usually call sediment forget them programs. Um then obviously we have vendors, staff-led and volunteer opportunities. So looking how to utilize our resources in conjunction with these different types of program considerations. Examples of passive programs that we are looking into. Um I believe you are all aware of the public art that is happening in the downtown, um, I'm sorry, at the Wildflower property, uh including the swings, the mural, and um the asphalt art at the splash pad. Our focus is to continue to create a space at Wildflower that people want to come and spend time with their families, loved ones. Um we're considering pavilion reservations. So during those times where maybe programming isn't viable, opening up the space for people to come in and to book the pavilion for for parties for private gatherings, and uh, you know, take advantage of the splash pad and and and the scenery out at at the at the park. And then something that's pretty common today in in a lot of passive uh passive parks are games, and we'll assess as we as we continue to move forward with the programs and see what works and what doesn't work, we'll see what kind of supplementary games and activities we can we can have there that can just stay throughout, you know, throughout the the opening of of the park. So with regard to vendor-led programs, a lot of talk about food trucks. Food trucks are a fairly easy thing to bring in. Um it can stand alone, but even looking at it as something that can accompany fitness programs. If we know we have, you know, yoga, tai chi, a boot camp happening Monday, Wednesday, Sunday mornings. I can also have, you know, someone out there selling smoothies, selling, you know, juices, coffee, um, being cognizant of the area with the water, the noise, residents. So looking at kind of lower key events um with with um acoustic musical um musical instruments. Um and again, these things don't have to be independent of each other. Staff-led programming, some things that we're looking at um to start sooner than later. We've uh we've termed um one of the programs uh monthly recreation field days. I will come up with something nicer. Um, but for just to kind of explain with what that is, looking at having different sections from the department come out on a monthly basis and kind of advertise what we do and also offer programming. It could be Gumbo Limbo doing something regarding nature, it could be the library with story times, it could be athletics doing um a particular sport across the board in the department public art. But it gives us an opportunity to bring some either free or affordable, very affordable programming to the public and also continue to promote what we do in recreation. And pop-up events is another thing where we we would take advantage of what's already happening in the area. So if we know there's a busy Friday night, we can just we can come out there with whether it's uh a musical act or or some food or uh a craft, but kind of leaning into what's already happening down there and and supplementing it with um some additional recreation programming. And we continue to look for ways to work with volunteers in the community as well. So we've talked about uh the possibility of a garden. We thought a butterfly garden may work, we have it at some of our other parks. Volunteers do maintain them. So it's something we thought maybe we could continue here, and then also um potentially adding some some clubs. Uh we have a lot of people in our town that want to walk, they want to run wildflower could be uh a potential hub to you know to uh for the where those clubs can kind of work out of and gather and and again promoting health and wellness throughout throughout um our programming.
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