This is the fifth article in a six-part series from One Boca, One Future spotlighting the City of Boca Raton’s most valuable yet under-realized growth area: The Northwest Sector, the space on the map between I-95 and Military Trail, Clint Moore Road and Spanish River Blvd.
What is a community of the future?
As business and government leaders contemplate this question in Boca Raton and its Northwest Sector, many answers and definitions come to mind.
A “community of the future” is a destination for leading-edge companies and the bright, entrepreneurial minds who create and run them. It is a place on the front lines of innovative technology, where disruptive applications take root, and business development thrives.
It’s where companies want to base headquarters or regional operations to avail themselves of essential amenities and benefits found nearby.
Such essentials include robust housing options for management executives and employees of all levels – from single-family estate homes to high-end, multifamily communities suitable for a young, educated and high-wage workforce.
With such housing in place, an existing or emerging transit infrastructure facilitates and simplifies commuting and fosters a sense of community. Sustainable design initiatives that tap planned mobility development create a community that encourages pedestrian-friendly living and reduces impacts on the environment. People walk, bike or take mass transit to work, lunch or on errands, opting – when possible – to leave the car at home. Lower traffic volumes would limit impact on surrounding neighborhoods.
Neighborhood-oriented retail options give people a place to meet, shop and collaborate on personal or professional pursuits.
Such benefits would include grade school and higher education institutions, where executives or older employees would send their children, or any employee may seek continuing education for career or personal advancement. Companies themselves would find a rich pool of talent which to recruit from among the best and brightest candidates for internships or high-skill employment.
As employers and employment grow, so, too, does the city’s tax base – delivering city-wide prosperity from small-yet-focused clusters of growth. Such revenues will reduce the need for either service reductions or tax hikes for everyone – while providing much-needed investments in city-wide opportunities.
Above all else, the future will be pursued by a network of like-minded business leaders, executives and employees with a shared and energetic vision for the community’s future.
A city prepared to maximize on the 21st Century will aggressively capitalize on attributes that are changing communities across the country. Its leadership will work with area business and property owners to partner on dreams to ensure the best city-wide outcome.
Nowhere is the promise of a “community of the future” more a reality than in Boca Raton, and especially its 966-acre Northwest Sector and the Arvida Park of Commerce. In this under-utilized area between Interstate 95 and Military Trail, technology, corporate headquarters, light manufacturing and service businesses share the commonality of business leaders similarly interested in the forward-focused prospects of an entire city made stronger by smart, suitable and sustainable developments.
Over the past several weeks, a snapshot of Boca Raton has been presented. It has offered an organically generated, new look at the city and its Northwest Sector that have come about through community partnering encouraged by our city leaders. From its residential offerings, retail amenities and the benefits of creating a sustainable community, readers have learned what can come from turning the few remaining and vacant industrially-zoned, shovel-ready parcels of developable land into a live / work / learn / play community built better, brighter, smarter and greener by and for those who call it home.
Boca Raton has all these elements in place to purposefully position it perfectly for the economy of tomorrow. From intellectual and physical infrastructure to high-end housing to A-rated schools that prepare a high-caliber workforce primed to carry the entire city into the future, it’s all here.
The benefits – from growth of the tax base to recognition as a world-class community – would touch every resident of the city. Boca Raton’s Northwest Sector exemplifies the promise our future holds.
Together, we can create One Boca One Future.