IN DEPTH: Boca Raton's new big-city vibe leaves its retirement-spot identity behind

BOCA RATON — There never used to be a "downtown Boca Raton" — Palm Beach County's southernmost municipality was long considered more of a retirement community than a trendy destination. But thanks to recent growth, vibrancy and opportunity across the city, that's no longer the case.

Numerous luxury downtown residences are under construction, a new high-speed rail stop was built, a growing university has developed a national reputation and a plan to transform the city's Mizner Park Amphitheater into a multistage performing arts and events center was just approved.

Boca Raton is indeed booming and the growth is centered around a small but active 344-acre downtown district that runs roughly just south of Glades Road to Camino Real (about 1 mile north and south) and Crawford Blvd. to the Intracoastal (about 1 mile east and west).

Though the city’s reputation as a snowbird haven precedes it, with so many new residents, its median age today is just 48 years old. Newcomers are changing Boca’s demography — and its corporate landscape, too.

Much of the city’s growth is recent, and rapid. Its population, now approaching 100,000, grew nearly three times as fast as the population of the United States during the past two years, and has drawn a disproportionately high concentration of younger residents. In 2022 alone, the City Council approved six major 100,000-square-foot projects in the CRA.

MORE: Here's a closer look at downtown Boca Raton's new hotels, townhomes, restaurants and offices

But is it growing too quickly? The spurt has prompted concern from some long-time residents over whether the city’s infrastructure can keep pace with expansion.

City officials, though, are united in their vision of a city defined by one ubiquitous maxim: Boca Raton will be a place residents “live, work and play,” without leaving.

“Other cities are seeing downtowns suffer and office vacancies at 50% or greater,” Boca Raton Mayor Scott Singer said. “We can be excited that major companies and investors want to add new offices to our downtown to further the ecosystem of an outstanding place to work, play, and live.”

Mizner Park was Boca Raton's big boom moment

“Mizner Park holds the key to Boca Raton’s future,” read the headline of a 1989 Palm Beach Post article. The area’s development — then a recently approved $40 million project — would signal “the true beginning of the downtown renaissance” in Boca Raton, officials proclaimed 34 years ago.

Mizner Park’s present-day land plot was, at the time, home to the Boca Mall, a derelict and half-vacant relic from the 1970s. What is today the iPIC Theaters, an upscale movie theater and Mizner Park staple, was then the mall’s last tenant, Christy’s Dive Bar — a popular FAU student spot with bare, concrete floors described by its owner as a “causal, come-as-you-are, regular-guy place.”

With a population of just over 61,000, Boca was growing slower than many other Palm Beach County cities. Its downtown commercial center was nonexistent.

“It was dilapidated, and the whole parking lot used to flood,” Boca Raton Downtown Manager Ruby Childers said of the old Boca Mall’s lot. “[That] spurred the City Council to move forward with the community redevelopment area.”

Mizner Park was the first major project city officials and residents approved in Boca’s community redevelopment area (CRA), a portion of the city selected for revitalization back in 1980. More than 40 years later, Boca Raton has become one of South Florida’s preeminent hubs of retail, tourism, and corporate activity. The city houses luxury high-rises, condos, and more than half of Palm Beach County’s corporate headquarters.

If Mizner Park was the beginning of Boca Raton’s renaissance, the city is now in its golden era. By 1995, a few years after Mizner’s opening, there were 350 residential units in the CRA. Today, there are nine times that amount, and nearly seven times as many property owners.

Why are Boca's luxury residences taking over and who is moving in?

In 1988, Boca’s City Council authorized more than 8 million square feet of development within the boundaries of the CRA. Of that amount, only 14% remains to be approved. Nearly 7 million square feet have gone toward completed projects, or have been allocated to either projects under construction or approved projects.

“The development-rights availability is dwindling,” Childers explained.

Much of that space is occupied by residences, Council Member and CRA Chair Marc Widger said. In the past 20 years, roughly 3,000 residential units have been added downtown. And while that growth was gradual, there’s been a particular uptick in luxury residence offerings during the past five years.

Downtown apartment buildings — such as Tower 155 and Alina Residences Phase 1, are both new high-rise complexes. Tower 155, an 150-unit, 13-story building on East Boca Raton Road, is under construction and will have luxury one-to-three-bedroom condominiums steps from Sanborn Square and longstanding restaurants such as Tucci’s Pizzeria.

Alina Residences, set to be a three-building complex less than half a mile from Tower 155, is being constructed in phases. All 121 units in the first building, completed in March 2021 and nestled behind Royal Palm Place, are occupied.

Candace Jorritsma is the vice president of sales and marketing at Elad National Properties, the real estate developers behind Alina Residences. She noticed one key difference between residents of Alina Phase One and other south Florida buildings she’s worked with in the past: Alina buyers, she said, are “homegrown.”

While Boca Raton buildings often attract part-time older residents from the Northeast, many Alina residents moved from southern Palm Beach County’s western suburbs to the new building full-time.

“Their kids were going to college, and they said, ‘What are we going to do here? I want to travel; I want to be active,’” Jorristma said. “And I think they liked the fact that the downtown Boca area is very multigenerational.”

The success of Phase One led to a quick start on Alina 210 and 220, the other two buildings in the complex about one mile east of Camino Square. The buildings will house 152 total units, and are currently under construction with a projected completion date of late 2024.

By the time the structures of Alina's new buildings were finished in late June this year, they were already 60% sold. That’s a striking amount for a building that won’t open for over a year. According to Jorritsma, roughly 30% of the new units’ buyers were referred by residents of Alina’s first building.

Like Alina Phase One buyers, many Phase Two buyers are also locals or residents from other Florida cities. Others are moving down from the Northeast. And while that’s not an atypical demographic for Florida real estate, Jorritsma said today’s northeastern transplants are significantly younger than the usual retirees that fill Florida communities and condo buildings during winter months.

The influence of the pandemic, she said, cannot be understated — Alina is now seeing younger northeastern residents make full-time moves to Boca Raton because they’re able to work remotely.

“Who wouldn’t choose to do that from Boca?” Jorristma said.

Boca’s population is surging, up 15% in the past 20 years alone, according to Milton Segarra, chief marketing officer of local travel agency Discover The Palm Beaches.

In 2024, more luxury condos are opening in the city to meet increased demand. On East Boca Raton Road, Reve Del Mizner — a three-story, five-townhome luxury residence — will fill a vacant lot walking distance from Mizner Park. And on Camino Real, a $69 million mixed-use venture called Camino Square is under construction, slated to contain two eight-story apartment buildings, a swimming pool and dog park.

Brightline and a ‘major investment’ in Boca Raton business

As more people move to Boca, businesses are doing the same. Overall office space within the city’s limits is increasing, and more businesses than ever before are located downtown. There are more than 1,000 active businesses within the CRA, and 46% more office space downtown today than there was in 1995.

“Boca Raton continues to attract major investment and companies and has gotten younger,” Mayor Singer said. “Our median age is down substantially from where we used to be and compares favorably to some other peer cities.”

City of Boca Raton Economic Development Manager Jessica Del Vecchio has been working in her position for the past eight years. Usually, she said, businesses moving to Boca are interested in the northwest corridor of the city by the Park at Broken Sound.

“Now, we’re seeing people want to check out corporate space downtown because of accessibility to the Brightline station, which is new for us,” she said.

Boca’s Brightline high-speed train station, located next to the Boca Raton Public Library and less than 5 minutes from Mizner Park, opened in December 2022. The $56 million project connects travelers to other South Florida Brightline stations in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach in under an hour. Service to Orlando was just announced and begins Friday, Sept. 22.

Mark Corlew, co-founder of real estate investment management group Grover Corlew, said Brightline has increased access to downtown Boca Raton. Workers who live outside of Boca Raton can now take Brightline into the city, avoiding morning traffic delays on Interstate 95. This allows businesses to tap into other markets for labor.

“It’s really opened up a couple of bedroom communities for younger workers and workers outside of the market that I think had difficulty making their way to downtown Boca in the past,” Corlew said.

The new Brightline stations in Boca Raton and Aventura comprise 34% of the train’s total ridership, which is up by 64% since last May, before Boca’s station was open. It’s part of the reason why Grover Corlew decided to buy Palmetto Park City Center, the five-story luxury office building at 120 E. Palmetto Park Road, in downtown Boca.

Acquired in March 2022, the building is already 90% occupied. Corlew said many of his tenants are family offices moving down to Florida from the northeast or west coast.

“We were seeing an influx of executives and new-to-market tenants that were looking at Boca and did not have high quality office space that they could lease,” Corlew said. “They were getting frustrated and going to other markets like West Palm.”

Further downtown, right next to Sanborn Square, another luxury office space project called Aletto Square is coming soon. Developed by Compson Associates, Aletto will feature two office buildings — one 10-story structure with a rooftop restaurant and another six-story space — as well as a six-story parking garage. It’s projected to be completed in 2025, and will be the first “Class A” office space built or renovated in downtown Boca Raton in 20 years.

“Class A” is a ranking designated to the highest quality offices that meet certain standards for amenities, location, rent, aesthetic and more. It will be situated on East Palmetto Park Road, an area Del Vecchio said many financial services firms are newly interested in.

“Before and since the pandemic, downtown Boca Raton has continued to attract major companies, particularly in the financial services market,” Singer said.

The restaurant scene: Tourists are starting to check out Boca

As more people and businesses move to Boca, the number of people visiting the city is increasing. Segarra of The Palm Beaches said Boca was a major contributor to the 9 million visitors Palm Beach County welcomed last fiscal year. Families and family businesses moving from out of state into the downtown area, and amenities like Brightline, attract tourists.

“[Brightline] is a testament to the value of the city not only for residents and businesses, but for potential visitors as well,” Segarra said.

Mizner Park has been home to restaurants, bars and cultural centers such as the Boca Raton Museum of Art since it opened in the 1990s. In order to meet demand from new residents and tourists, though, many new tenants have moved downtown the past year. Again, Brightline is also a contributing factor.

“The question is not what’s going to get people on the train to go to Miami,” Widger said. “It’s what's going to get people off of the train to come to Boca?”

Restaurants including American Social Bar and Kitchen, or Strike 10 Bowling and Sports Lounge, a bowling alley that caters towards adults with a bar and billiard tables, opened in May 2023 in Mizner Park. Two gourmet markets — BellaDukes and Spirits & Spice — have also moved downtown, along with multiple new retail stores.

The city’s downtown area is also home to four cultural facilities, one of which — the Mizner Park Amphitheater — is getting an $140 million upgrade that includes five flexible spaces for events and performances.

City officials’ “live, work, play” model for downtown Boca is regenerative — more residents and businesses downtown facilitate more retail and dining options. And expanded nightlife offerings attract more new residents. It’s a positive feedback loop that’s producing continuous downtown expansion.

“It’s no longer looked at as the old 'Seinfeld' episode," Childers said, referring to the TV show's depiction of the fictional Del Boca Vista retirement community. "I think that downtown has given the city a different vibe. There's a lot of different types of restaurants and music venues and cultural aspects that took a while to cultivate as a result of implementing the vision for downtown. It's no longer sleepy; it doesn't close down at nine o'clock.”

Eric Baker is the head chef/owner of AlleyCat Sushi, a restaurant that just moved from a smaller location into downtown Boca. He said the east Boca Raton area has seen a massive transformation in 10 years.

"About 2012, east Boca was really nothing — there wasn’t that much going on," he said. "It was kind of a wasteland. Most of the development in Boca took place just west of I-95 for many years, as there are a lot of retirement communities. Obviously the mean age of Boca was much higher than it is now and then as the city expanded and grew, it developed east.

"As people were moving out of their retirement communities and younger people were moving down here there was a desire for more highrises and apartment style living, people being more used to that type of living. And with that expansion in the downtown area, there's obviously a boom of restaurants and retail stores that followed."

To keep up with increased tourism, new hotel options are also coming to Boca Raton. The city recently approved the construction of a hotel at Royal Palm Place, and The Boca Raton — formerly known as the Boca Raton Resort & Club, and known for its signature, Addison Mizner-style pink façade — is undergoing a $200 million facelift.

Eight years in the making, The Mandarin Oriental, a luxury hotel chain, is set to open its 164-room hotel and branded residences in downtown Boca in 2024.

“It speaks volumes about the attractiveness of our particular market that the Mandarin Oriental chose our city to be the home of only the fourth Mandarin Oriental Hotel in all of the United States, even when they already have a location in Miami,” Singer said.

Too big too fast? Some residents have infrastructure concerns

Not all Boca Raton residents share city staff’s vision for the developing downtown area.

Alan Neibauer is a former reporter who moved to downtown Boca six years ago. He and other downtown residents founded a nonprofit organization called Save Downtown Boca Raton to advocate against new highrises, office spaces, and other approved projects downtown.

“Palmetto Park Road is a busy street, and the whole traffic situation downtown is getting bad,” Neibauer said. “It’s not improving; they’re not changing the infrastructure to adjust for the amount of building they’re doing.”

Neibauer, who lives in Tower 155, said trips that once took him five minutes — such as driving to Glades Road — now take him 20 minutes, and feels that Brightline’s railroad tracks are causing traffic. Since he moved downtown, he said the area is increasingly less pedestrian-friendly, and more congested.

His biggest concern is the Aletto Square project. East Boca Raton Road and Northeast First Avenue are two very narrow roads that intersect across from the proposed Aletto Square location. Neibauer said the roads are ill-equipped to handle increased car traffic, which two multi-story office buildings could generate.

His posts about Aletto on Nextdoor, an app that provides a forum for residents of different neighborhoods, sometimes receive over 100 comments, with an even mix of residents who agree and disagree with him. His online petition opposing Aletto Square garnered more than 1,700 signatures.

“You can’t fit two cars down [those streets] at the same time, one has to pull over,” Neibauer said. “What we’re saying with this project is that it would generate a massive amount of traffic and would be a problem.”

Neibauer isn’t the first Boca resident to oppose development. In the late 1980s, many longtime residents campaigned against the development of Mizner Park, which was approved in a contentious special election that The Palm Beach Post covered in detail.

Similarly, despite Neibauer’s position, Aletto Square has been approved, and some council members feel that it will actually reduce vehicular traffic downtown. Once the work day has ended, council member Widger said, diners at nearby restaurants will be able to use Aletto Square’s parking garage. Widger hopes this will reduce the amount of cards downtown at night.

“This will be critical to allow Palmetto Park to be more walkable,” Widger said.

He added that the city plans on conducting an updated traffic study and parking study downtown as development proceeds. According to Childers, the city has already hired a consultant specifically focused on walkability along Palmetto Park Road.

Childers said the city has always been focused on improving its infrastructure. In 1988, when large-scale development downtown was initially approved, the city was required to meet certain infrastructure thresholds before proceeding with development. These upgrades were provided for under Visions 90, a $45 million, 10-year capital improvements program. The city completed lane improvements throughout downtown and leading to major thoroughfares such as I-95.

“That's probably another reason why some of the early-year development redevelopment was delayed a little bit, because we had to have improvements in place before development could occur,” Childers said.

Those early-year improvements have fast-tracked present-day development, prompting concern from residents such as Neibauer. But the city is also updating its infrastructure as development takes place. According to Singer, Boca is currently in the middle of the Innovative Sustainable Infrastructure Project (iSIP), a $750 million campaign to advance the city’s infrastructure, roads, and below-ground utilities. iSIP is being completed without increasing property taxes.

“Boca Raton is ensuring that we continue to have outstanding infrastructure by consistent investment in it,” Singer said.

Looking ahead: Boca Raton turns 100 in 2025

In 2025, the city of Boca Raton will turn 100 years old. At that point, Widger said, city officials will update their plan for the downtown area — and the city as a whole.

His priorities include making the city more walkable. He advocates connecting the city’s east side — which he defines as east of the train tracks by Federal and Dixie highways — and its west side, west of the train tracks. Some cities, like West Palm Beach and Coral Gables, rely on multi-stop shuttle systems to reduce reliance on cars.

A shuttle system could connect Boca’s eastern and western halves, Widger said. Another idea, he said, is to connect the two highways using a pedestrian overpass bridge. Overall, the idea would be to reduce the need for a car in Boca Raton — the city is focused on multi-use, sustainable development in the near future.

The City Council hopes to eliminate the need for commuting in and out of Boca Raton for work or social plans. To achieve this vision of a “live, work, play” city, though, Widger said he has to exit Boca and keep his eye on developments in other cities.

“You need to see what's happening in other places, what's working, what's not working, and you want to take the best ideas when you can incorporate them,” Widger said. “You want to be visionary. You want to be aspirational.”

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Boca Raton's booming growth: Not just for retirees anymore