South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Bounce Sporting Club picks new spot
Complaints from residents prompt half-mile move
DELRAY BEACH — After receiving significant pushback from residents about staying open until 2 a.m., Bounce Sporting Club has ditched its plans to open at the $300 million Atlantic Crossing project.
Instead, the upscale sports lounge will be heading just a half-mile west into the revamped Delray Beach Market in a compromise that’s being dubbed as a “win-win-win” for Bounce, Delray Beach Market and the city.
As part of the deal, Bounce will be allowed to stay open until 2 a.m., Delray Beach Market gets a new anchor tenant to help jump-start business, residents near Atlantic Crossing won’t have to worry about late-night noise and the city officials avoid having to vote on a contentious issue.
“We listened to a lot of the residents’ needs and concerns, and we thought this was a great opportunity for us in a great market to put our next store without too many concerns down the line,” Bounce co-owner Cole Bernard said.
Rita Rana, who sits on the board
of Barr Terrace Condominiums and previously spoke against the late hours, said Friday that residents in her community were “relieved” after finding out Bounce would be relocating.
The problem centered about Bounce’s desire to stay open until 2 a.m. The bar’s initial location at Atlantic Crossing sat outside the city’s entertainment district, which runs from Swinton to Federal Highway and allows businesses to stay open until 2 a.m.
That meant Bounce would have to close every night at 12 a.m. unless it was granted an exemption from the city. Bounce officials previously said closing at midnight would significantly hinder its business since so many late-night sporting events such as UFC, boxing and West Coast sports last well past that cutoff point.
Nearby residents, however, pushed back on the proposal because of the potential of the late-night noise to infiltrate their neighborhoods, which they chose to live in with the understanding businesses wouldn’t be able to operate past midnight.
Some city officials also were concerned that granting an exemption could
create a domino effect where other bars outside the entertainment district would be granted later hours.
Bounce, which has additional locations in New York and Chicago, narrowly received preliminary approval from the Planning and Zoning Board in December, but was forced to temporarily pull its application from a Feb. 1 City Commission meeting after backlash from residents made it unlikely the proposal would be granted.
The project had remained in limbo until Bounce found a new location in Delray Beach Market, which lies in the entertainment district.
Jordana Jarjura, president of Menin Development, which oversees Delray Beach Market, said she had spoken to Bounce prior to the pandemic about potential locations, but that space wasn’t available in the four-story food hall along Atlantic Avenue just west of Federal Highway.
Delray Beach Market, the largest food hall in Florida, opened in the spring of 2021, but is currently revamping its business approach after hitting unexpected speed bumps.
Many of the original tenants were mom-andpop vendors, but with food prices soaring due to inflation as well as labor costs and availability becoming issues, it became tough for
those operators to be financially viable, Jarjura said.
“It was very difficult for some of those smaller businesses who were new operators to handle the increase in food costs and labor and still provide a product at the quality and the price point the people expected for a food hall.”
The lack of downtown foot traffic during the day also made it difficult for vendors, she added.
“We don’t have enough office space,” Jarjura said. “We don’t have enough multi-family, so you see on Atlantic Avenue how many restaurants are actually open for lunch.
“It’s significantly dropped off pre-pandemic because there’s just no people there to support the high food costs and labor shortage.”
The plan is to refocus the food hall with two large anchor tenants, one of them being Bounce, that are more geared toward late-night activity and can help carry some of the overall building costs. Jarjura said they plan on announcing the other business in the near future.
Bounce, which bills itself as combining “elements of a sports bar with the high-end cocktail lounge nightlife experience,” will operate on the north end of the first floor and will be approximately 5,200 square feet. The hope is for Bounce to open during the spring of 2023, Bernard said.