No one would confuse it with its French namesake but our county’s Riviera Beach is on the verge of a renaissance.
Through applications for multiple projects, the private sector is demonstrating interest in investing billions in the small city. The challenge for the city is to show it can speed projects of appropriate scale to fruition, while shaping their designs to best suit the nearby residents who are being asked to live with the impacts.
The Palm Beach Post reported last week on initial approvals of the $500 million Oculina project, which would transform a northern stretch of the city’s Broadway/US 1 corridor. In place of a shuttered Winn-Dixie would rise 400 condos, with ground-level shops, offices and restaurants.
Officials are excited by the prospect of reviving a sleepy area but frankly that’s a lot of project towering 25 stories above a low-rise community. However, if set back from the road, scaled back and architecturally restrained, it could improve the look, feel and financial underpinnings of the neighborhood and the city.
The development is just one of an estimated $2 billion worth of projects poised to change the face of Broadway into an attractive main street, not to mention hundreds of millions more in municipal infrastructure projects planned throughout Riviera Beach.
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Among the recently completed projects: the Amrit Ocean Resort & Residences, on Singer Island, represents the biggest single biggest addition this year to the county tax rolls, its value estimated at $270 million. Another project, the Berkeley Landing apartments, at 3100 Broadway, is targeting families and workforce members. In the works at 3501 Broadway is a FoundCare Riviera Beach Health Center, set for completion next year. The residential portion of the long-delayed Marina Village mixed use development, just off Broadway and next to the cruise and cargo ships of the Port of Palm Beach, also appears to be progressing; the project as a whole promises to be a game-changer for the city’s scenic waterfront public spaces. Municipal projects in progress include a new city hall, police headquarters, fire headquarters and stations and a water treatment plant.
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City Manager Jonathan Evans says the tax revenue and economic revitalization these projects generate should help the city invest in other improvements, from neighborhood lighting and connectivity, to parks, pavement, sidewalks and beautification projects, as well as desperately needed upgrades to water systems.
As we’ve written previously, the city council, by dint of personalities and politics, has a knack for crippling Riviera Beach’s great potential. But thanks to their persistence, a strong economic cycle and Evans’ professional management, they at last have a chance to transform the city and mend what ails it. But they need to move quickly and cohesively, while the cycle is spinning.
To that end, a few words to the wise:
— Let developers do the developing. Public-private partnerships are fine but city officials are not expert in development and should not take on the role and risk of developing projects themselves; that seldom ends well.
— Facilitate development but don’t give away the house in incentives. Limited incentives for job creation, for example, make sense. But it’s a mistake to give away city land like valuable waterfront property to move a project forward. If a developer needs that much of a handout, you have the wrong developer.
— Bring residents into the process early and often for their input. Again, you want developers to make a profit in the city, or they can invest their money elsewhere but that doesn’t mean you need to overlook constituents’ concerns about overbuilding.
— It’s important to think big in reshaping a city but to be mindful that big mistakes like oversized or unattractive buildings diminish all residents’ quality of life for decades to come.
Finally, to residents, we stress the importance of electing representatives who understand deep down the value of teamwork and integrity over petty feuds and political games.
The potential of this burg by the Intracoastal Waterway and the aquamarine shoreline of the Atlantic is remarkable. And it will come to fruition, as long as city leaders facilitate development while being tough but fair advocates for the residents they represent.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Redevelopment projects are lining up in Riviera Bech but need guidance
