Boca Raton Residents Protest City Hall Plan, Start Petition to Block Development

Jon Pearlman, founder of the ‘Save Boca’ campaign, speaks at the July 15, 2025 city council meeting. (Photo: Boca Daily News)

Boca Raton residents who support a growing movement in opposition to the city’s plans for a downtown government campus that will also include large residential and commercial spaces built in partnership with a private developer made their voices heard at a city council meeting Tuesday night.

Motorists in recent weeks have undoubtedly seen the roadside signs advertising “Save Boca,” the name of the campaign against the plan that has now evolved into a formal petition to both change the city charger and introduce an ordinance that would preclude many facets of the city’s public-private partnership with Terra-Frisbie, a development group that was selected by the city council as a partner on the plan to transform more than 30 acres in downtown Boca Raton. Dozens of residents packed the council chambers, with dozens more overflowing in the corridor outside, which still drew a standing-room-only crowd to watch the proceedings on a video monitor.

No decisions on the government campus project were under consideration Tuesday night, but the Save Boca group urged its followers to come to the July 15 council meeting to have their say and collect more signatures for the petition, which must garner at least 5 percent of the total number of electors from the most recent municipal election in order to force the council to acquiesce and approve the petitioners’ ordinance, or place it on a ballot for a referendum vote. The petition drive is being led by resident Jon Pearlman, whose is urging voters to sign two separate measures – one to change the city charter and one to introduce a new ordinance. A formal revision to the city’s charter is considered a superior legal mechanism to blocking the government campus plan. Boca Raton has 64,159 registered voters, according to Palm Beach County statistics tallied in June.

‘Save Boca’ tee shirts at the July 15, 2025 city council meeting. (Photo: Boca Daily News)

Residents pack the Boca Raton council chambers, July 15, 2025. (Photo: Boca Daily News)

“If it’s public land, it should be a public vote,” Pearlman told council members Tuesday night, to cheers from attendees both inside and outside the meeting room.

The residents primarily oppose what they see as overdevelopment in the downtown sector, but have also objected to the loss of several recreational facilities and public parks. (Officials have promised they would be relocated and new recreational facilities would come as part of the campus project.) Further, opponents are wary of the nature of the public-private partnership, wherein the city will float bonds on behalf of Terra-Frisbie, which the developer will pay back. Under the pending terms of the partnership agreement between the city and Terra-Frisbie, development of the city government complex would come in phases, beginning with residential development.

“I’ve seen developers do the profitable phase for them, and never deliver to the community what the community needs,” said resident Jonathan Ungeon. “They build the residential, and they never build the other components. I don’t want to see this happen again since phase one is residential.”

Both the ordinance and city charter amendment being pursued by the Save Boca Raton group largely accomplish the same policy: prohibiting the transfer of publicly-owned land, parks or preservation areas more than a half-acre in area to private developers without voter approval.

“To save our public land, we are circulating a petition that will require a public vote before public and park lands can be leased, sold, or transferred to private developers,” Pearlman wrote in a statement to supporters.

Officials have countered that some residents have misunderstood the benefits of the public-private partnership, in which public lands will be redeveloped privately with not only the apartments and commercial space, but a new city hall building, new recreational facilities, walking paths and myriad amenities.

The partnership is aimed at allowing private industry to develop the 31-acre site near the city’s Brightline high speed rail station with a new city hall building, a surrounding government campus, plus more than a thousand units of residential housing along with commercial space and amenities. A hotel could also be part of the package. The city benefits, proponents argue, by having its long-discussed new government campus constructed by the developer, while new ratables will be added to the downtown area, potentially alleviating some of the housing demand that has sent rental rates skyrocketing in recent years.

Renderings of a proposal by Boca City Center, Terra-Frisbie Group, for the city’s new downtown campus. (Planning Document)

Renderings of a proposal by Boca City Center, Terra-Frisbie Group, for the city’s new downtown campus. (Planning Document)

Renderings of a proposal by Boca City Center, Terra-Frisbie Group, for the city’s new downtown campus. (Planning Document)

Specifically, the Boca Raton City Center concept, proposed by Terra-Frisbie, included a city hall complex of about 36,000 square feet, a 50,600 square foot community center, a 10,000 square foot police substation, 265,000 square feet of open space or recreational facilities, and 1,129 units of residential housing in a 10 story building and several three-story garden homes.

The residents argue that the project carries financial risk and oversaturates the downtown corridor with development, potentially contributing to worsening traffic woes. Some have held that the modern development would curtail the waning vestiges of Boca Raton’s history, much of which centered in East Boca before expanding westward.

“The city is continuing to ram development down the throats of the downtown,” said Ungeon.

Another resident took issue with the council referring to Terra-Frisbie as their “partners.”

“We are your partners,” he said, with the following speaker calling the plan “greed camouflaged as progress.”

The marathon public comment session lasted for several hours, after which Mayor Scott Singer and council members had their say on the potential benefits of the project, which could spur billions of dollars in development. A partnership between the city and private industry is not unheard-of, the mayor said.

“Mizner Park was a public-private partnership,” said Singer. “It was the most successful partnership in our city’s history, and we have the opportunity to do the same here.”

Singer touted the Terra-Frisbie proposal as being the “least dense” of those that had been under consideration.

“It’s not easy governing a city of 100,000 conflicting opinions, and some of us change our minds,” he said. “But we’re trying to create something that creates value. It’s not a shopping mall – there’s a lot of recreation, green space, small stores and restaurants.”

Renderings of a proposal by Boca City Center, Terra-Frisbie Group, for the city’s new downtown campus. (Planning Document)

Renderings of a proposal by Boca City Center, Terra-Frisbie Group, for the city’s new downtown campus. (Planning Document)

Renderings of a proposal by Boca City Center, Terra-Frisbie Group, for the city’s new downtown campus. (Planning Document)

Officials also pushed back on claims by opponents of the plan who criticized the fact that the city’s police headquarters would move to a new building near the Spanish River library, saying such a move would be needed regardless of the downtown campus proposal. Police offices and facilities are currently scattered throughout the city, with the aging headquarters building considered unsuitable for many law enforcement tasks. Its location was chosen before the city grew in the westerly direction, which has occasionally caused issues.

“The railroad blocks police department access to the east, and having the police station located directly across a one-way street from the railroad is not a good idea,” said City Manager George Brown, reminding residents that the city will, indeed, hold a referendum vote on bond funding for the police station next year.

Councilman Andy Thomson, the only member of the governing body to vote against the Terra-Frisbie proposal earlier this year, said questions remained – and proceeded to ask them.

“Why are we building condos? Who’s paying for the infrastructure? What kind of impact is this going to have on Palmetto? What happens with the phasing if the other phases don’t get built? Should public parks be sold?” he asked.

Still, Thomson said there has been some “unwarranted criticism” of the council, particularly on the part of some residents who stated that all of the members “live west of I-95.”

The proposed location of a new police headquarters building in Boca Raton, FL, May 2025. (Photo: Boca Daily News)

“We all do our best to understand the entire city and represent everybody fairly,” he said.

Singer said he, as well as all of the other members of council, remain open to both suggestions and criticism.

“I take to heart the comments,” he said. “We try in great earnestness to listen as hard as possible. We don’t have the luxury of being able to contact every single individual on a door-to-door basis. If you don’t like the substance, tell us. If you don’t like the process, tell us.”

Resident Tom Reid, however, told council members the project is unlikely to work without community support.

“Our town is like a big family,” he said. “A family can’t function when there are this many people who disagree on something. I am requesting you go to a vote, and you sell it to the people.”