The City of Delray Beach Site Plan Review and Appearance Board on Sept. 24 approved a Level 2 site plan for a two-story, roughly 12,000-square-foot medical office building with a small retail bay at 802 Southeast Fifth Avenue, finding the proposal consistent with local land-development regulations and the comprehensive plan.

Julian Gudanik, senior planner in Development Services, entered into the record file number 20204254 and described the project as a Level 2 site plan for an approximately 12,000-square-foot commercial development with primarily medical office uses and about 900 square feet of retail on the ground floor. Gudanik told the board staff corrected a scribe error in the staff report that had incorrectly listed the proposed land use as “multifamily,” saying, “That’s obviously not the case, so I apologize for that error.”

The applicant, represented by architect Randall Stoft of Randall Stoft Architects, said the project is intended as a single-user building for Delray Dermatology and the Lewis family, which currently operates in the area. Stoft said the design hides a ground-floor garage behind active uses on Southeast Fifth Avenue and creates a small civic open space at the corner. “Our intention is the blue,” he said when the board asked which façade color should be approved, referring to a discrepancy in submitted renderings.

Board members voted to approve the site plan, landscape plan and a landscape waiver that would reduce the depth of a required parallel parking island from the 22-foot standard to 16 feet 4 inches so the applicant could retain a fifth on-street parking space. The motion as approved included the condition that the building façade color be blue. The roll-call vote was five in favor, one opposed and one absent.

Why it matters: the project will replace a vacant restaurant site at the corner of Southeast Fifth Avenue and Eighth Street, add on-street parking and new street trees in a portion of the South Palm (South Paris) central business district, and establish a medical/retail use that the applicant says will remain owner-occupied for now. Several board members said the site plan’s relief requests would shift operational impacts — notably loading and larger deliveries — onto the public right of way unless mitigated.

Key details and board concerns

- Site and program: 802 Southeast Fifth Avenue; roughly 0.7 acres (about 30,000 square feet lot area); two stories; roughly 12,000 square feet total; about 900 square feet of ground-floor retail; primary use medical office. The property was previously a restaurant and is currently vacant.

- Parking and loading: Staff said the code-required parking based on the use area is 56 spaces; the applicant proposes 54 on-site spaces. The applicant also proposes five new on-street parking spaces in front of the property; however, staff noted the code does not allow newly created on-street spaces to count toward the site’s required parking in this CBD context. The board considered a parking reduction (relief) as part of site-plan approval. Loading: the code requires a 12-by-30-foot loading zone based on the square footage and use category; none is provided on site. Staff and the applicant said most deliveries are expected to be small freight vehicles (UPS, FedEx), for which the applicant proposes an internal “sprinter van” area in the drive aisle and possible short-term use of the new on-street spaces. Board members expressed concern that infrequent larger deliveries would have to use Eighth Street right-of-way because the site cannot accommodate large trucks or provide required vertical clearance for them.

- Landscape waiver: The applicant requested relief to reduce the required 22-foot parallel parking island to 16 feet 4 inches; staff recommended the shorter island so the applicant could retain the fifth on-street space rather than remove one parking space to meet the 22-foot standard. The board approved the landscape waiver as part of the site plan action.

- Design, streetscape and public space: The proposal includes a 300-square-foot civic open space at the corner, a continuous perimeter hedge where the site abuts lower-scale residential, expanded street-tree canopy along Fifth Avenue, foundation plantings and landscaped deck plantings that meet the 10% minimum for the second-floor parking deck. Staff found the architecture and CBD design guidelines to be generally met; the applicant described the style as an angled Caribbean aesthetic with stucco, wood accents and metal louvers screening the garage.

- Trash and dumpster: The design places a roll-out four-yard dumpster at the north side of the site to be rolled into the right-of-way for pickup; staff noted staging the dumpster partially out into the street was preferable to backing a service vehicle into the site, which posed a greater pedestrian safety risk.

Board deliberations and outstanding items

Several board members voiced a substantive concern about long-term operational impacts if the ground-floor retail were to be leased to another tenant that required more intensive loading than the applicant anticipates. One member said that future tenant changes would not necessarily return to the board for review and urged caution before approving loading relief. Board members also discussed the status of a narrow former alley segment adjacent to the site that had been reabsorbed into the subject property through a deed process; staff said that segment had been unavailable for public access and was transferred back to the property owner, so it is not available as a loading alternative.

Next steps and appealability

Board staff said the site-plan decision is appealable to the City Commission; staff will place the decision on a future commission agenda as an appealable item. The board’s motion included a specific façade color condition: blue. The final action count recorded on the meeting transcript was five yes, one no, and one absent; staff said required permits from the Florida Department of Transportation will still be needed for changes to curb cuts and the state-owned street frontage.

Votes at a glance

- Approval: Level 2 site plan application (file number 20204254) for 802 Southeast Fifth Avenue, including architectural elevations, landscape plan and a landscape waiver (reduced parallel island depth). Condition: façade color approved as blue. Outcome: approved (motion passed). Vote tally: Yes — Jose Alvarez, Nicholas Coppola, Robert Lewis, Christina Morrison, Winskey Villanois; No — Annette Gray; Absent — Cynthia Lloyd.