‘The Set’ wants to be Delray’s hot neighborhood

A neighborhood off Delray Beach’s Atlantic Avenue is aiming to be as popular as its trendy downtown counterpart.

Neighbors in “The Set” are asking the city to sign off on a plan that could eventually bring improved sidewalks and bike lanes while bolstering new businesses and offering job training for people living in the area.

The Set is bordered by Interstate 95, Swinton Avenue, Lake Ida Road and Southwest 10th Street.

The plan got approval Thursday from the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency, which is responsible for the downtown and The Set. More than a dozen people spoke in favor of the idea at the meeting, with no one speaking against it.

“For decades, the city commission has neglected our neighborhood,” said Dedrick Straghn, a CRA board member and resident of The Set.

The area branded itself as The Set in 2016, referencing the sun setting in the west and the sets of tennis played at the Delray Beach Tennis Center, a popular gathering place for neighbors.

The proposed plan comes more than a year after the CRA hired a consultant to help update improvement ideas for the area. Revitalization efforts go back at least two decades when the city created the West Atlantic Redevelopment Coalition.

The coalition was set up as a nonprofit that gives the city suggestions on how to improve the community and oversee revitalization efforts.

In addition to redeveloping the area, activists want to tackle some of The Set’s socio-economic issues, including a nearly 20 percent unemployment rate.

One solution is to increase the number of small businesses and educational programs, said Charles Ridley, chairman of the coalition. The proposed plan suggests offering residents services such as job-training programs, financial literacy courses and resources for entrepreneurs.

“What the community wants is development partners to understand that just focusing on the development of the downtown corridor is not enough for the community to sustain living here and growing families here,” said Kristyn Cox, the CRA’s West Atlantic Redevelopment Director.

In 2015, the CRA hired Cox to serve as a liaison between the coalition and the city. She helps promote efforts to build up the area and coordinates redevelopment ideas.

But as the area gets redeveloped, Ridley said another chief concern is ensuring

longtime residents of the western neighborhoods aren’t pushed out of their homes as the area grows and gets developed.

He said he hopes the plan will give the community more say in shaping the area’s future.

“For most of the first 15 years we’ve pretty much served as a watchdog group to make sure that the city and the CRA didn’t develop in a way that would cause us to lose our community heritage,” Ridley said. “We’re moving into really being more than a watchdog group, but actually leading and guiding the process from a community perspective.”

“For decades, the city commission has neglected our neighborhood.” Dedrick Straghn, CRA board member