City and consultants lay out visioning ideas for West Palm Beach downtown master plan update

Consultants and City of West Palm Beach staff presented a visioning update for the downtown master plan at a public session and asked residents and stakeholders for feedback on zoning, transportation, waterfront activation, housing affordability and open-space improvements. No formal votes or regulatory changes were made at the meeting; presenters said the project will move into regulatory drafting and be presented to elected officials later in the year.

Grace Perdomo, representing Siskovich Architects, opened the session and said, “The focus for today is exactly what it says here on the screen. We want to hear from you this evening what you think downtown should look and feel like over the next 10 to 20 years.” Perdomo and Anna Maria Conte, the city’s assistant development services director, described the engagement process and noted this was the third of three public visioning panels.

Bernard Syskovich, founder of Siskovich Architects, framed the team’s approach as an update to the 2007 code and described a “version 2” of zoning based on character and context rather than rigid form-based prescriptions. Syskovich said the city has seen substantial private investment — noting roughly 2,000,000 square feet of new office space and growth in hotel rooms from “392 rooms back then” to about 1,700 today…