Property owners association presents Delray commissioners with a plan to enhance the city beach

By David Sedore, Palm Beach Business.com

DELRAY BEACH — Delray’s signature feature — its municipal beach — is about to get a master plan for improvements. And perhaps a name.

Members of the Beach Property Owners Association Tuesday presented Delray Beach city commissioners with a blueprint for amaster plan, which includes some rather modest proposals, such as enforcing beach rules and traffic laws along Ocean Boulevard and some more ambitious projects such as renovating the beach’s pavilion and two gazebos with a historic, 1930s look and adding some twists and turns to the linear sidewalk that defines the beginning of the beach area.

It also calls for designating the beach as a city park, complete with a real name instead of the utilitarian but unromantic “municipal beach.”  A suggestion from Eric Katz of the property owners association: Delray Gleason, which would incorporate a name closely associated with the beach’s history and a name already used to designate a slice of the beach.

The intent is to enhance the value of the beach as the city's most visible natural resource and attraction.

delray's beach pavilion would get a '30s style look under proposed master plan

The beach pavilion at Atlantic Avenue and Ocean Boulevard would get a 1930s retro look under a master plan proposed by the Beach Property Owners Association.

On hand to present the proposed master plan were Katz, Bob Victorin and Mary Renaud of the Beach Property Owners Association. The association developed the plan with suggestions and comments about through two charrettes, or public meetings that were open to all Delray resident. The city’s planning and zoning department will review the proposal and present it to commissioners for formal adoption.

The plan is cost-conscious, which is rather important considering the city is cash strapped and faces a lean budget year. It also positions the city to apply for federal and state grants for some of the more ambitious proposals.

It’s divided into three phases, with the first phase dealing with items that won’t require a lot of cash. It includes better police patrolling of the beach area, and stricter enforcement of beach rules and regulations. It also includes designating the beach as a city park.

Phase II is more ambitious, and includes renovating the pavilion and two gazebos with the ‘30’s style look, plus adding two pergolas, one on the north end of the beach, the other at the south end, that would act as signs announcing the entrance to both the city and the beach area. Katz said they would be done in the same style as the pavilion and gazebos to create a unified look.

It also proposes that the parking meters that line Ocean Boulevard be removed, replaced with the system where spaces are numbered and motorists pay at machines strategically placed near beach entrances. Katz said this work could be done whenever the city would normally replace meters.

Further down the road, the city could replace the conventional, straight sidewalk between Ocean Boulevard and the beach with one with a few curves that would give pedestrians a more interesting stroll and provide opportunities for creative landscaping.

“It would give it a much more natural, interesting look,” Katz said. “Again that’s nothing for the next few years.”

Other proposals include planting trees east of the dunes to provide some shade, burying power lines and redoing pedestrian crossings on Ocean Boulevard to make them more attractive and better defined.

 

 

 

coming soon the daily bulletin

your ad here

Openings at $75K to $500K+

mac corner...essential reading for apple computer users
CompUSA
DELRAY'S ONLINE BUSINESS AND COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER — PALM BEACH BUSINESS.COM
   
palm beach business.com
MAY 19, 2010 click to go home
 
         
click to go back to the top
Delray's Online Business and Community Newspaper