Building up Boynton Beach

Ocean One next up in downtown push

Boynton Beach’s vision of a vibrant downtown bustling with shops, parking garages and multimillion-dollar developments is inching closer to reality.

The city’s redevelopment agency agreed to pay $4.5 million over the next several years to help fund the first phase of Ocean One, an eighting story building at the southeast corner of Boynton Beach Boulevard and Federal Highway, with apartments and space for retail and restaurants.

It is one of more than 10 planned residential buildings that will rise from four to 10 stories in the southeastern part of Boynton Beach and help form the city’s new downtown.

“We want things to be developed in the city — we don’t want to be a hindrance,” said Mayor Steven Grant. “All these new residential units are what we are looking forward to.”

The downtown area in the southeastern part of the city would consist of restaurants, retail and public park- garages that would attract tourists as well as new residents. It reflects a plan to redevelop the city in various ways, including adjusting the city’s main entrance to improve Boynton Beach Boulevard’s appearance and to encourage walking and bike riding.

Ocean One will sit on the 3.6-acre site of a torn-down Bank of America building at 114 N. Federal Highway that has sat empty for more than a decade, succumbing to shrubs so overgrown they’re taller than the few cars parked on the cracked pavement.

Current plans, approved in April,