Community Suggestions On Waterfront Land Welcomed Through Forum

By: Nikki Colonna

The city of Boca Raton is encouraging its members of the community to come forth and give their opinions about how and for what the waterfront land should be used.

On Monday, April 3, a forum will be held in Boca’s downtown library from 6 to 8 p.m. This open discussion with revolve around the thoughts and voices of Boca Raton residents’ opinions regarding the waterfront usage plan [as well as the plans that the city has discussed].

“The purpose of the meeting is to share the consultant’s information with the residents and solicit input,” said Chrissy Gibson, city communications manager. “The community wants to be a part of the planning process that determines the future of the City’s waterfront property.”

The hot topic of the usage of the waterfront has sparked interest recently within Boca Raton. In the past, there have been some problems involving the former WildFlower property. The residents’ opinions resulted in the demolition of ‘city plans’ in order to create a restaurant.

EDSA Inc (an architecture landscaping organization), have been working for the city of Boca Raton as their consultant for roughly a year as their main goals are to help plan, design and brainstorm new ideas to use different faculties throughout the city of Boca.

As an architecture and landscaping business, some of their main clients on their endless list of success are Florida Atlantic University and Walt Disney Imagineering. They have big things in mind for the waterfront land and are open to suggestions from the public.

“There will be tables of small groups who will discuss and share their ideas with the consultant EDSA will review 14 parks with waterfront access, list the current and planned amenities and ask for additional input from the community,” added Gibson.

This forum is important to EDSA Inc. as well as the entire city of Boca because the residents deserve to have recommendations. Once they assemble a report, they will show all suggestions and points discussed at the forum to the City Council for consideration. If the council decides to take action, they will pass along the ideas to the EDSA Inc. as they begin the process of designing and layout of the land accordingly.