Boca Raton hears four competing redevelopment plans for government campus; CBRE outlines next steps

Boca Raton City Council on Jan. 27 heard detailed presentations from CBRE and four teams that submitted unsolicited proposals to redevelop the city-owned government campus near the Brightline station, with council and staff outlining a Feb. 11 ranking of proposals and an open house set for Feb. 19.

CBRE's project lead, Leanne Korst, described the presentations as a digestible summary of 'volumes of information' and said the city will 'rank those proposals on Feb. 11' and negotiate a nonbinding interim agreement with the top-ranked team by March 18. Korst said staff and CBRE have engaged independent subject-matter experts to review planning, traffic, infrastructure, fiscal impact, environment and sustainability.

The four proposals vary widely in scale and financial approach. CBRE senior analyst Mike McShay summarized the Terra/Frisbie proposal as offering roughly $4 million a year in guaranteed ground rent and presenting a lower building height and a mix of retail, hotel and residential; CBRE's early analysis assigned a net present value to the Terra/Frisbie ground-lease stream in the low hundreds of millions of dollars. Effie Namdar's Namdar Group proposed a much denser plan built around transit, telling the council it would deliver up to 8,000 residential units and build the public infrastructure and buildings the city would need if the city accepts the higher density. Related Ross presented a plan with a substantial office component intended to bring year-round employment near downtown; Related Ross representatives emphasized jobs and long-term fiscal revenue. RocaPoint Partners proposed a model that prioritizes constructing the municipal facilities and site…