Boca Raton Awards $4.2M Contract to Move Three Historic Buildings

Three historic buildings on Crawford Boulevard in Boca Raton due for relocation, June 2025. (Photo: Boca Daily News)

A trio of historic buildings now located adjacent to the Huxhold Skate Park on Crawford Boulevard will be moved to new, separate locations to make room for a future administrative complex at the site.

The three buildings, known as the Ricketts House and the Rickards House, plus the Singing Pines Children’s Museum, will remain in use after being moved from the Crawford Boulevard site. Boca Daily News has previously reported on decisions to move the museum building as well as Ricketts House. The Singing Pines building and Rickards House will both be relocated to Meadows Park, east of the community garden, on NW 8th Street, where they will be operated largely as they had at the current location. The Ricketts building will be relocated to the Boca Raton Cemetery and Mausoleum Property on NW 3rd Street, where it will serve as a base for cemetery and recreation staff.

Singing Pines Children’s Museum, Sept. 2024. (Photo: Boca Daily News)

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Three historic buildings on Crawford Boulevard in Boca Raton due for relocation, June 2025. (Photo: Boca Daily News)

The Crawford Boulevard property will eventually be developed as the location of the city’s Building Administration and Code Enforcement, or BACE, building. In 2023, the city council inked a deal with Pirtle Construction Company, of Ft. Lauderdale, to develop a master plan to move the three buildings and construct the BACE building. Last week, the council slightly modified that deal, agreeing to raise Pirtle’s construction manager’s fee from 5 percent to 7 percent for the relocation portion of the project, then snap the fee back to 5 percent for the construction of the BACE building. The project had initially been planned for two phases – pre-construction services followed by the relocation and construction of the new building. Now, construction of the BACE building has been put on hold, which prompted Pirtle to request a 7 percent managerial fee across the board. The two sides settled on the split fee.

The BACE building will now be constructed only after completion of the Government Campus redevelopment project downtown.

Three historic buildings on Crawford Boulevard in Boca Raton due for relocation, June 2025. (Photo: Boca Daily News)

Pirtle was awarded a $4,248,560 contract for the relocation of the three buildings. The cost of construction for the BACE building has yet to be determined, however initial estimates suggested the total cost of the relocations plus the BACE building construction would fall between $15 million and $18 million. Deducting the $4.2 million cost for the relocation, the BACE building construction would likely be $11 million to $14 million.

Ricards House was originally located on the barrier island, south of the Palmetto Park Road bridge, having been constructed in the 1890s of materials salvaged from a shipwreck. It was eventually torn down, but portions were relocated to the Crawford Boulevard site. Ricketts House was constructed in 1939 as a real estate office. The Singing Pines building dates back to 1913, and was moved to its current location in the 1970s and eventually turned into the Children’s Museum.