We’re about to begin a six-month planning process involving City Hall, Memorial Park and the surrounding public property.
As part of that process, I think we should ask a more fundamental question:
What actually needs to be downtown?
And we should start with a larger goal.
The Downtown Civic Campus and Memorial Park give us an opportunity to help make downtown a real neighborhood for the people who live there and in the surrounding neighborhoods.
We do need a City Hall, so let’s envision a 21st-century one in the Chen Moore planning process.
We could look at the entire former City Library property between Second and Third Streets — the building, parking and surrounding land — as a blank canvas for our downtown City presence.
That canvas could become a true City Hall, community center and the facility for the Police Department’s downtown presence.
And Memorial Park could finally become what its name says it is: a park.
A real downtown park — green, active and welcoming.
A place where neighbors meet, children play, families gather and adults have recreational opportunities of their own. The planning process could explore an expanded tennis center that includes pickleball.
It could serve people living in downtown’s condominiums and apartments and residents of the surrounding neighborhoods — a public park that helps make downtown a community of neighbors.
So the strategic questions are straightforward:
What truly needs to be downtown? What can operate effectively elsewhere? What will the alternatives cost? And how can the public land we already own best serve the people who live downtown and nearby?
That’s strategic planning applied to a real decision.
Let’s use it to help turn downtown into a community.
Photo courtesy City of Boca Raton