Town Square
will build residential units and a four- or five-story hotel, which will have up to 150 rooms, at the corner of Boyn- city’s second assistant city ton Beach and Seacrest boumanager, who handles the levards. An eight-story apartfinances. “We won’t know ment complex is planned at exactly what that will be until Northeast First Avenue and we get the numbers and pres- Boynton Beach Boulevard. ent the financing package.” To the south of that is a six
And Commissioner Mack story building and at the far McCray said: “I don’t want us south end of the project is a to get in the water and find three-story building. out we got a small boat and The change in price for the we can’t handle the water.” public portion came from
Town Square stretches increasing the size of a resfrom Boynton Beach Bouidential parking garage, the levard south to Southeast energy plant, more under- Second Avenue, and from ground utilities and higher Seacrest Boulevard east to construction costs, accordNortheast First Street. Groff ing to documents. said the land will be transBut some of those proj- formed into the city’s “fam- ects are expected to genily room,” and will be a cen- erate money, including the ter for residents and visitors district energy plant that to eat, work, play and even will provide cold water for live, something that’s been air conditioning through a 20 years in the planning. central chilled water plant.
Town Square will be redeGroff said the city has to veloped as a private-public find between $10 million partnership. Private entities and $12 million of that $38.8 A breakdown of costs for the project, expected to be complete by September 2019:
Two parking lots:
$32.8 million
New city hall and library: $26.9 million
New police station on High Ridge Road: $21.6 million
Historic high school renovation: $10.5 million
District energy plant: $10.4 million
New fire station:
$4.8 million
Demolition costs: $2 million
million.
The city plans to lease out some areas such as the historic high school, which will become a cultural arts and civic center, and spaces for startup business collaborations. The city is also exploring offering naming rights for certain buildings to bring in money. A digital board is planned for one of the parking garages and advertising on that could bring up to $100,000 a year. Also, tax credits could be placed on the high school, parking garage and library.
Casello wants the new police station farther east rather than on High Ridge so the city can sell that property. However, he isn’t getting much support.
On Tuesday, commissioners rejected the idea of selling a portion of the site to be privately developed as a Wawa service station and convenience store, a hotel or a restaurant. If that happened, the police station would have to be three or four stories instead of two and they’d need a parking garage. With all that, the cost of the station could double, Groff said.