Boca Raton staff recommend buying 6551 Park of Commerce for city services; residents raise price, museum and park concerns

City staff and the city's real-estate advisor presented a recommendation July 14 to acquire 6551 Park of Commerce as a consolidated site for city services during the long-term redevelopment of the downtown government campus, and to retain some services there after a smaller new city hall is built downtown.

Deputy City Manager Andrew Lukasik told the City Council at a workshop that staff and CBRE had evaluated multiple properties and that acquiring 6551 Park of Commerce, combined with building a roughly 30,000-square-foot city hall downtown, would cost about half as much as moving and rebuilding a full 100,000-plus-square-foot city hall downtown.

Will Portfolio, senior vice president with CBRE, said the city’s search began in January and included 15 initial options, tours of 10 properties and a shortlist of five. He told council the city’s planned purchase of 6551 Park of Commerce equates to about $247 per square foot, which he said falls in the middle of owner-occupier comparables that range from $228 to $288 per square foot. “We had another interested owner user buyer… They were quoting $19,000,000. We got them down to 17.4,” Portfolio said.

Why it matters: the acquisition would create a temporary and long-term hub for many municipal functions while the downtown campus is redeveloped, a step staff says will reduce the overall cost of the government-campus program. The proposal has budget and planning consequences for the city’s Capital Improvement Program and for the Community Redevelopment Area (CRA) funding that supports parts of the downtown plan.

Public concerns and staff responses

Several residents questioned the price, the transparency of negotiations and CBRE’s role. At the meeting, a resident who said a nearby corner property sold in February 2025 for $14 million urged staff to explain why the city would pay roughly $3.4 million more for the adjacent lot. “Why are you paying a premium on the same lot?” the resident asked.

Portfolio responded that the corner building contains a data center that limits the buyer pool and that market conditions vary by building. He said the seller had initially asked $19 million and that the city negotiated the price to $17.4 million. He also said he represents the city as the tenant/buyer advisor and that CBRE’s landlord/listing business is a separate team: “I represent the tenant and the buyer, my fiduciaries to the tenant and the buyer.”

City Manager George Brown addressed public questions about a separate, longer-running facilities plan for the Building Department and the future of the Children’s Museum on the downtown campus. Brown said the city previously planned to build a new structure for building and code functions on the museum site and that the $4.2 million figure for moving three historic structures associated with the museum — the children’s museum buildings and two houses on the parcel — is an estimate under evaluation. “The cost of moving the three structures… is about $4,200,000,” Brown said.

Fit, costs and due diligence

Staff said 6551 Park of Commerce was the most operationally efficient building of those toured. CBRE’s workplace analysis found the building needed fewer improvements than others surveyed; staff are carrying a conservative $75 per-square-foot improvement estimate and $50 per-square-foot for furniture, fixtures and equipment but expect to refine those numbers during design and contractor engagement.

Council members and staff clarified procedural next steps. The proposed purchase will proceed through a purchase-and-sale process and due diligence; staff said a condition of proceeding is that the parcel be unified or otherwise meet conditions set in prior development approvals. No final purchase vote was taken at the workshop; contracting documents were scheduled to be presented to council the next night.

Discussion vs. decision

The workshop produced no formal council vote. Staff described ongoing negotiations, due-diligence steps (including title/subdivision/unification checks) and planned capital budgeting for the acquisition and fit-out. Lukasik said more detailed financial and planning information is expected in the coming month as the master partnership agreement and other analyses are refined.

Context from public comment

Public comment at the meeting connected the acquisition discussion to several community facilities. Craig Ernst, identified as a Beach and Park District commissioner and resident, urged collaboration after a nonprofit declined to continue some activities at the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center and suggested issuing an RFP for rehabilitation work. Judy Morrow, a longtime resident and user of the Boca Raton Tennis Center, asked why the tennis facility should be moved or changed and asked for clarity about an earlier figure of $4.2 million related to relocating the Children’s Museum. Several business owners and property owners urged more transparency about negotiation documents and comparable sales.

What’s next

Staff will present contracting documents to the council at the regular meeting the following evening and continue due diligence. Lukasik said the council can expect a more comprehensive report within about a month as more financial details, infrastructure needs and master plan work become available.