Large hotel coming to Boca Teeca?

At this week's meeting of the Greater Boca Raton Beach & Park District there were several important issues discussed by the commissioners and the executive director:

1) Executive director Arthur Koski indicated that a 110-120 room hotel would be planned for the current hotel property at NW 2nd Ave & Jeffrey St.  Mr. Koski indicated that he was working with hotel companies who informed him that this would be the minimum size that they would be interested in building on this site using a ground lease agreement with the owner of the building
* Is this in the best interest of the Boca Teeca residential community?
* It would be expected that this size of a hotel would require additional parking - where?
* This would be expected to require widening of NW 2nd Ave.-is this what residents want?

2) New commissioner Craig Ehrnst asked if the Boca Teeca residents would consider removing the deed restriction so the District could use part of the golf course for other park uses, as he stated that residents should be expected to compromise
* Is this new commissioner really asking Boca Teeca residents to remove the deed restriction?
* Is commissioner Ehrnest suggesting that an 18 hole golf course would generate more revenue than a 27 hole golf course?  He had been inquiring about the financial impact of acquiring the property for $24 million at previous meetings so this would be very inconsistent to question the financial impact and then suggest reducing the revenue capability by 33%.
Residents may send their comments directly to this commissioner at: cehrnst@mybocaparks.org

3) Mr. Koski assured residents in attendance that the city was not going to select a winner for the bidding the the sell of the current municipal golf course until after a deal is reached by the District & Lennar on the purchase of the Ocean Breeze property.
* No contract has been signed by the District to purchase the Ocean Breeze property, so residents are being asked to trust Lennar in this process.
* Did Mr. Koski see the last city council meeting?  Apparently not, as the city council  considering selecting a winning bidder and it was obvious that the majority of the council were leaning to the selection of GL Homes over Lennar.  There is no legal agreement that Lennar's current offer to sell the Ocean Breeze property to the District for $24 million will continue to exist in the future, especially if they lose the bidding process for the city golf course.

4) There will be another joint meeting with the city council & Park District on May 8th at 4:30pm at 6500 Congress Ave.  It is expected that a more thorough presentation by the Park District will get the financing approval process started with the city - requires a 2 council meeting approval process as an amendment to the city budget.  The city plans to issue bonds for these funds with an agreement with the Park District to pay the city all principal and interest on these bonds.  This is a similar process to how the Park District has acquired other properties in the past.  The Park District executive director has stated that there will be no requirement to increase taxes to pay for any estimated costs in acquiring the Ocean Breeze property.