Sun Sentinel's report, posted here because the stories get "lost" a couple months after posted and I may want to reference this again:



City, FAU seek ways to consolidate collegial influence

Corridor envisioned as an FAU-influenced sphere

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Florida Atlantic University wants to grow out of its commuter origins into a more traditional campus and the city of Boca Raton would like to help them do that.

One of the main goals is to keep students from living in single-family neighborhoods. City Council members say they've been hearing from their constituents about some of the problems that students can pose to single-family neighborhoods: parking issues, noise and tall grass, to name a few.

"We can tell you where they go and we can tell you what neighborhoods they live in too," Boca Mayor Susan Whelchel told FAU officials. "We would like to help you corral them into a nice, safe place."

FAU's executive staff met for nearly two hours with City Council members Wednesday about the university's housing needs and how Northwest 20th Street could be reborn from its slightly blighted condition into thriving, off-campus extension of FAU, while consolidating student housing in one place.

That effort seemed to have the city and FAU at odds last year when the City Council approved dormitory-style, off-campus housing that FAU officials opposed. That building is underway next to Plum Park, but the two sides left Wednesday's meeting pledging to meet more and share information, including focus group results on student housing desires.

Tom Donaudy, FAU vice president for facilities, said the university currently has 3,650 beds on its campus, is currently building for 600 more and has a vision that calls for 4,880 beds by 2016, but it's difficult to gauge what percent of the 23,000 FAU students centered in Boca want to live on campus.

"We don't want to overbuild, we don't want to underbuild," he said.

Timothy Tallent, who's majoring in urban design, said he lived on campus his freshman year but then moved off-campus into a single-family house.

"After the first year, the novelty of living on campus wore off," he said.

A quick note:

Donaudy mentioned a plan that basically means FAU has to build another IVA-style dorm of 1,200 beds in the next 3 years (that or two 600-bed dorms like GPT/HPT/the new one, Parliament Hall)

That's pretty cool too.

They need to get going on IVA-II. Any word or pics on the new parking garage next to the stadium?

I went to the meeting for the first hour.

Highlights from the City (random thoughts and notes):

The 20th Street Corridor is a priority to address for their work plan for next year.  That does not mean they will do anything.  This was a first meeting with FAU to discuss.  The City is requesting input from FAU to make sure projects do not step on each others toes.  The City seems to want to do "something" but they have to look at everything and understand how whatever "something" becomes, will impact current residential areas, zoning issues, law enforcement impacts.  They have not ruled anything in or out.

All agreed that 20th Street is one of the most "blighted" areas in Boca and Boca does not like "blight."  The mayor stated: "It's time," to do something about 20th street.

The corridor was defined from the University to Dixie Highway.

The City wants to work with FAU to come up with the best possible street they can come up with.  FAU offered that they would be happy to put up banners on the street to give it a feel of a university district.  Both the University and the City thought it would be good to create a pedestrian "feel" to the area whereby students could walk down the corridor to and from the University, etc.

The city commented that there was another company inquiring about building another private dorm in the area.

FAU said it would be great for the City to consider Faculty housing in the area.

FAU said they thought it would be nice to have students offer some input about what they would like to have in the area.  The City had some concerns about the area just becoming a bunch of "honky tonk" bars.  A council member did state that there was a new store on 20th that sold FAU logo gear  ;) and stated they welcome those types of businesses.

I don't want it to sound like they all hated the idea of bars.  They know that may happen, but they just want to understand the impact.

You could tell both sides have had some issues with each other in the past but seemed genuinely interested to take input from each other for the corridor.

In summary, this is all very preliminary.  No one has specific ideas but will continue to meet to develop a plan.

From an on campus perspective, FAU gave some feedback on some possible ideas for the next update to the Master Plan which will be updated in 2014:

These are just being discussed, but will be decided for that update:

Possible Greek Housing within a dorm.
Possible on campus Hotel and conference Center.  This would be a small boutique hotel.  The site being discussed is near the Eastern most Glades Road entrance (where the hospital was originally going).

The city asked about how much housing they eventually plan for on campus.  FAU stated they envision 6k-7k maximum on campus with an enrollment of 40K.  That leaves a lot of needed housing off campus.

That's about it.  Just the beginning.

Thank you very much for this!

The hotel idea is one they've volleyed around for a little while as a means for teaching the Hospitality students. It would be a boon for the program but obviously it comes at some cost of valuable land space. From what I've read, the plan would be to bring in a private hotel company that would build an "academic hotel" - apparently this is the standard arrangement in colleges who do this.

i like the fact that mayor is willing to engage the university. If you look where 20th street ends meets the railroad tracks and the possible tri-rail costal, it be a perfect location for the train station. I would love to know if they are planning on enticing big business to the coordiator or more businesses like Its Owl Time.

My sister went to Syracuse University and there's a hotel just off campus, I believe it was a Marriott. This worked out nicely during parents weekend and also for those people who wanted to come into town for a big football/basketball game.

I know we have our own Marriott on Airport Rd. They should look to do something with that. Maybe a shuttle from the hotel to campus? I don't know if maybe something like that already exists. I know it's not far from the football stadium either. I think the school and the city need to incorporate that hotel into their future plans

Sorry I couldn't make it y'all, I got back from Tampa at 2 AM last night. I'm happy to hear that the city and FAU are both on the same page and willing to work together on the housing/20th street issues. While I've learned not to get my hopes up with housing on campus (whether it's about pricing, rules, or Greek housing), I am excited to hear that another company has approached the city to build another off campus apartment complex for students. I love the idea of putting up FAU banners on 20th, and creating a more pedestrian friendly corridor between FAU and Dixie.
Very excited for our future. Maybe I should take my time to graduate?