Boca Raton City Council Workshop Meeting - November 17, 2025
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Boca Raton City Council Workshop Meeting - November 17, 2025
The Boca Raton City Council held a workshop meeting on Monday, November 17, 2025, beginning at 4:00 PM. The primary agenda item was an update on the Government Campus Redevelopment Partnership Opportunity with Terra Frisbee, including presentations from staff, CBRE, and public comment. The meeting also included public requests and council member reports.
Consent Calendar
- No consent calendar items were presented.
Public Comments & Testimony
- John Pearlman (498 Northeast A Street) opposed the project, arguing that the premise of a transit-oriented development around Brightline was flawed due to Brightline's financial troubles (over $5B debt, junk bond ratings, cumulative losses of $1.8B). He also claimed that the city was misleading the public about doubling green space, stating the park is no longer part of the deal, and criticized Terra Frisbee's involvement in the Surfside collapse.
- Pam Pashki (341 Southwest 2nd Street) asked for clarification on the 1% transfer fee, requested assurances that parking would remain free, and questioned the placement of a public hearing notice for the Camino Square project.
- Mike Liebelson (398 Northeast Third Court) expressed full support for Save Boca's petition to require voter approval for sale or lease of public land. He called for the Terra Frisbee deal to be scrapped, alleging errors in financial analysis and noting that the city budgeted $80 million for infrastructure before any returns. He also criticized CBRE's success fee and commission, urging the council to ignore their advice.
- Jonathan Unge (6501 Congress Avenue) asked about the $80 million line item in the budget, suggesting it might be for walkability improvements. He expressed approval of the revised plan that preserves green space but raised concerns about CBRE's role as leasing broker.
- Judy Morrow (1305 Northeast Fifth Avenue) questioned the lack of appraisal, the potential loss of the post office and police station downtown, and the need for police presence. She argued for keeping the tennis courts and opposed overdevelopment, citing traffic and quality of life issues.
- John Pearlman (second public request) spoke about the 1% transfer fee, claiming Terra Frisbee intends to exit the deal in 5-7 years via a REIT, and criticized a budget amendment to transfer $13 million from building permit services to the general fund, urging the council to keep the funds for rebuilding the building department.
- Mike Liebelson (second public request) asked the council to add an agenda item to determine an appropriate discount rate for future cash flows, arguing that the 4.5% rate used by Terra Frisbee was artificially low and should be replaced with a rate around 12%.
- Judy Morrow (second public request) raised concerns about traffic enforcement, speeding on Palmetto Park Road and Northeast Fifth Avenue, and the lack of speed bumps.
Discussion Items
- Government Campus Redevelopment Partnership Opportunity: Deputy City Manager Andy Lucas presented the project timeline, noting that Terra Frisbee was selected in February 2025 after a competitive process, and the interim agreement was extended to May 2026. He highlighted that the plan had been reduced by approximately 25% (from 1.6M to 1.1M square feet) and that all private development is now east of Northwest 2nd Avenue, with the west side dedicated to public amenities.
- Public Facilities Overview: Staff described proposed public investments including a police/fire rescue substation, a community center (3-3.5k sq ft with flexible space, food/beverage, athletic facilities), expanded Memorial Park (doubling recreation space from 7.6 to over 15 acres), children's playground, community green, Banyan Village retail, garden walk, and a city hall (30k sq ft) with community-facing services.
- Financial Presentation: CBRE's Mike Mache outlined the proposed financial structure: base rent (minimum fair market value plus percentage of gross revenue), ad valorem taxes, city participation in developer's profit (10% of upside above 8-10% yield-on-cost), a 1% transfer fee on sale of buildings on leased land (not condos), and a mobility contribution of ~$7.8M. Projected total proceeds over 99 years: over $4 billion (present value discounted at 4.5%: $353 million).
- Cost Estimates: CBRE's Leanne Cortes presented cost estimates for public facilities on the west side, totaling approximately $198 million, including buildings, open space, site works, utilities, roadways, and transportation/mobility.
- Next Steps: Staff outlined key dates: December 2, 2025 (ballot language and PFM independent financial analysis), December 16 (regulatory structure discussion), December 18 (Planning and Zoning Board review of leases), January 6 and 20, 2026 (council consideration of master partnership agreement, ground leases, construction management agreement, master plan), and March 10, 2026 (voter referendum).
Key Outcomes
- The council heard extensive public comment both for and against the project, with strong opposition from several speakers regarding financial assumptions, Brightline's viability, and the process.
- Councilmembers asked clarifying questions about the transfer fee applicability to condo land (it does not apply), the $80 million CIP line item (it is a planning figure not yet committed), and the discount rate methodology (CBRE defended 4.5% as standard for public-private partnerships).
- Councilmember Wigder requested more detailed annual revenue projections and sensitivity analysis for different discount rates, and noted that a PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) clause is included in the ground lease.
- Councilmember Drucker highlighted pending property tax legislation in Tallahassee that could affect ad valorem revenue projections.
- The meeting concluded with a report by Councilmember Wigder on the history of City Hall and a suggestion to consider restoring the 1964 mid-century modern building as part of a Memorial Park Museum District.
- No formal votes were taken; the discussion will continue at the next workshop meeting scheduled for November 18, 2025.
Meeting Transcript
Good afternoon and welcome to a workshop meeting of the Boca Ratone City Council. It is Monday, November 17, 2025. The time is now 3.59. We have no proclamations or presentations today, nor do we have any board interviews. And we the only agenda item we have is the campus partnership opportunity discussion. So I'm going to suggest we proceed right to that. Then if we have any of the public requests or review of regular agenda items, we can take that up given the attendees in this room, I think they'll want to comment on and get an update on the government campus partnership opportunity. So with that, I'll turn to you, Mr. Sohaney. Thank you, Mayor. And I'll turn it over to our deputy city manager, Mr. Lucas, to begin the presentation. Thank you, Mr. Sohaney. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. So as you all know, we've been working diligently over the summer to do a couple things. Predominantly to react to a lot of the comments that we've received as it relates to a lot of the public meetings that we've had and some of the outreach we've done. But also still bear all those comments in mind while we're working towards achieving that initial objective that you established, which was creating creating that environment as an extension of the downtown where we have this walkable, active, connected area. So that that and that combined with some of the infrastructure improvements that you identified as part of that project as well. So Terra Frisbee has been engaging in a lot of listening activities. They have been making changes to their proposed plan. This this presentation is really an opportunity to get you updated as to where Terra Frisbee is. So Rob Frisbee is here. So CBRE representatives, Leanne Corse, and Mike Mache are here to walk us through those conversations. But I'm going to go ahead and start just by walking through our timeline on the project to date, just to bring everybody up to speed. So council, you'll you'll recall that we received unsolicited proposals in late October 2024. And in response to the receipt of those unsolicited proposals for the uh transit oriented development proposal and the campus redevelopment proposal that we have been talking about in strategic planning and other public meetings. And make sure that we had a competitive process because you received two unsolicited proposals. We wanted to make sure that there was a competitive environment, and we made made sure that not only did we get a proposer that could articulate the vision the best, uh, but also make sure that it was financially uh beneficial not only to the um development partner but also to the city as well. Um we I'm trying to there we go. So on in December, we released that offering memorandum. Um in February, uh council, you reviewed um you received presentations from uh a series of proposers and selected Terra Frisbee uh to be our to uh join in a partnership with us. Um uh various reasons you selected Terra Frisbee as that proposer or that partner. Uh one was um how they captured your vision for the downtown area. Uh secondly, the scale of the development uh was lower than the other proposers that submitted. Uh so that was that was something that you talked about during that decision making. And also uh from a revenue perspective um on a unit basis, uh Terra Frisbee offered uh the city the uh most beneficial um uh proposal. So for those for those reasons, you asked us to continue to work with them asked staff to work with Terra Frisbee to uh move uh forward with a interim agreement. And that interim agreement uh we entered into um in March of uh this year. And that interim agreement essentially established the framework by which we have been working with Terra Frisbee over the course of the past several months. During that time, as you all well know, lots of outreach opportunities, which I'll talk about in a little bit. Lots of public discussion, a lot of feedback that you have received from the public at these public meetings. It was initially supposed to end in late October. By the time we got to late October, we realized, hey, there's still a lot of work to be done. There's some public engagement we need to do. There's some reaction to the public engagement, public feedback that we've had that we want to make sure that we accommodated. So we extended the interim agreement in March and October. And that that extension gets us to May of 2026. So fast forwarding to today, it's November 17th and 18th, and we're here talking a little bit about where we are as a result of all that engagement. The first step will be a resolution that the City Council will consider related to the ballot language in March.
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