Boca Raton CRA considers amendment to Royal Palm Place hotel approval as debate centers on parking and design

The City of Boca Raton Community Redevelopment Agency on Feb. 23 reviewed an amendment to the Royal Palm Place Hotel Individual Development Approval that would reduce the approved hotel from 144 rooms to 137, eliminate below‑grade parking and add a seven‑story parking garage with ground‑floor retail, prompting an extended discussion about parking counts, design and construction sequencing.

Susan Lesser, Senior Planner for the city’s Development Services Department, told the board the amendment reduces the previously approved hotel building square footage (from the previously stated ~167,360 sq ft figure to roughly 80,800 sq ft for the hotel portion), replaces a 24‑space public plaza with a 7‑story parking structure and modifies a range of uses across the approximately 15.4‑acre Royal Palm Place site in Downtown Sub Area D. Lesser said staff supports the applicant’s requested technical deviation to use a shared‑parking analysis that changes the required parking calculation and that the project overall provides more supply than existed on site under the old configuration.

Why the change? Ellie Zacharias, counsel for the applicant, said construction costs since the pandemic have made the originally approved below‑grade parking economically infeasible. "Construction costs have gone astronomical since COVID, making those 2 and a half levels of underground parking economically…