Delray to study what to do about chain stores

Changes on Atlantic Avenue spark concern about shopping mix.

D E L RAY B E AC H — A To m my Bahama replaced a small bout i qu e o n At l a n t i c Ave nu e . A Wi n g s B e a c hwe a r f r a n c h i s e opened where a locally owned art and framing shop once was. A decades-old greasy-spoon eatery, The Green Owl, was forced from a spot on Atlantic Avenue where a banking café will soon open. And that’s just in the past year. The restaurant-retail-residential makeup of Delray Beach’s popular downtown, centered around an iconic Atlantic Avenue, has transformed drastically.

But Delray Beach leaders want a say in the future of downtown about what businesses — specifically national chains versus momand-pop shops — can and should open downtown.

“The pressure on how downtown is changing and going to continue to change is escalating,” Mayor Cary Glickstein said after the City Commission met with the Downtown Development Authority’s board last week for the first time in 15 years to talk about the “big picture” future.

The authority, a special taxing group whose board is made up of small-business owners, is responsible for encouraging the success of Delray Beach’s downtown. Its role could soon include, at the urging of the City Commission, determining what businesses can open downtown.

“We’re not set up for big-box retail,” said Laura Simon, the authority’s executive director. “But it’s a known fact that if there are one or two national chains in your downtown, your business will increase by some 12 percent.”

Rober t Gibbs, a renowned urban planner who lauded the city’s downtown in a USA Today