This is the last 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.
Boca Raton has the leading-edge attributes any 21st Century city would want.
It has a bustling and growing technology, healthcare and professional corporate base. Its employers provide high-wage careers to skilled employees coming out of area colleges and universities.
Those employers, as well as community planners, forward-thinking civic leaders, area developers and other stakeholders jointly pursue a common vision of planned development and long-term sustainability.
Together, these elements and infrastructure exist as dots that when connected create a model of how tomorrow’s best and brightest communities can thrive in an evolving global marketplace. As a result, the spate of business development, new construction and job growth leads to a fertile tax base that benefits the entire community and brightens future opportunities.
As urban planners around the country visualize the nature of planned live / work / learn / play communities, Boca Raton could become the roadmap.
Boca Raton isn’t alone in recognizing this profile. In 2008, the Northwest sector was identified as being “in a state of evolution,” according to the 2008 land use and urban form study from urban planning firm Glatting Jackson Kercher Anglin. Though the area is zoned for light industrial uses, plans for retail and luxury residential development could provide employees of area company’s suitable housing that otherwise are found only in nearby cities a commute away.
Central to the city’s success has been the collaborative relationships between all its leaders – residents, educators, civic leaders and stakeholders. This was revealed most recently with the third annual MedUTech forum and program. Bringing together innovators from Boca Raton’s and Palm Beach County’s medical / healthcare, educational and technology sectors, the event has become a showcase for the region’s innovative pursuits – with Boca Raton as the anchor.
MedUTech had much to cover. From pre-kindergarten through graduate programs, the educational system is actively fueling the workplace with educated workers, especially for the high technology and healthcare arenas. Technological advancements developed locally are changing the global marketplace for industry and consumer applications.
A growing sustainability construct is starting to brand the entire Western Central (Town Center, Florida Atlantic University and Boca Raton Regional Hospital) and Northwest Boca Raton sectors. Initiatives that have embraced high levels of international and national sustainability certification processes include the Allianz Championship at The Broken Sound Club, Lynn Financial Center, Office Depot’s global headquarters, Lynn University, and the FAU College of Engineering, among others.
Plans for the Northwest Sector incorporate planned mobility. Local transit options will reduce commuting’s impact on local roadways and the environment and encourage synergies between workplace, retail and residential markets. Communities created to enable people to live in proximity to both the workplace and retail options allow for collaboration, networking and a more green way of life.
The model sets the stage for community longevity. Families demand more opportunities for their children and grandchildren to excel and expect a greater myriad of educational opportunities.
Graduates from local colleges and even the medical schools become high-wage employees, who rent luxury garden apartments near their workplaces in the Northwest Sector. They eventually buy homes, raise families, send their children to A-rated schools – all of which fuel a city’s engine and sustain the community’s lifecycle.
In fact, the infusion of such amenities serves as a magnet. Additional educated residents appreciate activities and cultural arts, which grow in kind. The new population base requires greater health resources and high-caliber medical care for residents – which often leads to “medical tourism” common in areas with leading-edge facilities found nowhere else in a region.
Transforming Boca Raton into a regional and national mecca for medicine, technology, education, arts, culture and wide-spread economic prosperity creates a healthier and safer environment for residents and visitors. The city will continue to be recognized as a model community in which to live and raise a family. Desirable and trend setting, it will be studied and emulated by urban planners for the opportunities it creates for residents, visitors, students, the work force, consumers, retirees and all its stakeholders.
In recent weeks, One Boca One Future has profiled the area’s changing demographics, its sustainability initiatives, and infrastructure improvements needed to propel the local area to becoming a remarkable community. Ultimately, what emerged was a roadmap to quality of life improvements and prosperity that re-emphasizes the city’s largest employment zone, broadcasts a “new way” to reinvent ourselves, and creates the community of the future.
By connecting the dots from education to high-wage employment, and planned mobility development and walkable, sustainable communities in Boca Raton’s valuable yet under-realized Northwest Sector, the city becomes a lure for companies looking to relocate or grow here. Business prospects improve. By creating a robust community, an improved tax base funds the needs of the entire city through taxes on real property, retail, consumerism and general investment.
Amid all the leading-edge attributes any 21st Century city would want is a roadmap to the how the city can become an example of a collaborative community of tomorrow – and the realization of One Boca One Future.