How can we screw up your beach complex?
As soon as I arrived this morning at 9am, Commissioner Herman Robinson was there so I had to chide him just a bit about being the guy who wants to ruin our beach. Chris Zimmerman, Owner and President of CPZ Architects was there along with several associates. CPZ is a Broward County CBE firm with a local staff of 10 employees, 3 of which are registered Architects. They were awarded the design contract from the City of Lake Worth.Primarily the residents were there to give the design team our ideas on what we want at our beach. That was easy for me--leave it alone; repair our pool, open up the view so that it can be seen by those driving by; redo the lockers and bathrooms and if necessary, build a parking garage on the lower level and keep our decal parking. Lease the 2nd floor space or build-out around its perimeter for city purposes for offices for the Recreation Department and lifeguards and have the space in the middle to lease out for small meetings. Do not spend small fortunes. Essentially that is it.
They had a sign-in sheet and a comments page to fill out on various topics such as parking, do we want more retail space, what do do with the upper level space, etc. Herman was insistent that I sign it. No problem, commissioner--I do everything under my own name--no anonymous for me!
The only thing they needed on the form was--give us your ideas on how we can screw up your beach complex. Only a few years ago, we spent $11 million dollars re-doing our casino, the upper level as well as the parking below. We can dream big and what we dream may not even be close to what we can afford or actually need. Fiscal responsibility is what's needed for our poor city...keep that in mind elected officials and city management.
13 comments:
amen, i agree.
Was Pam there or does she need more car allowance?
What the HELL is going on?????? The beachfront was redeveloped and it's DONE. NO ONE except people who stand to make $$$ off this wants anything else done up there. LEAVE IT ALONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@7:35...i agree with you.
I was just thinking about the city's insistence of a parking garage. Is our parking lot full during the entire season? It sure is't close to being full during the summer. It's not even half full. If the garage sits idly, not being used, how much $$$ will this cost the city, ultimately the taxpayers? I would like to see some studies/projections on this before they dig into the dune or build on the lower level.
DOES ANY ONE REMEMBER WHEN LORETTA SAID THE ONLY THING TO MAKE MONEY DOWN THERE WAS A 7-11 AND A BANK .THEY WOULD RENT FOR LONG PERIODS OF TIME.WHY ELSE WAS THE QUESTION ON THE FORM TODAY ON MORE RETAIL
Why have a parking garage unless it's planning for more retail? A beach is not a mall. Money is not a god.
Amen,Amen! Just fix our pool! I agree with all of Lynns ideas. I was shocked to find all the questions about retail. Wasn't this charette supposed to be about our POOL????? one strange thing was the green and red dots they handed out to people to put on the board up front. The RED dots were for yes I like that and the green dots were for no I don't want that. It seemed backwards and I hope we all were not told wrong.
I wasn't told about the red and green dots while I was there. And I agree, green normally would mean "go" and red would mean "stop"...don't do it.
From 2001 to 2011 when the beach was redeveloped, countless meetings and charettes were held to assess what the community wanted at the beach. This resulted in the beautiful, often photographed casino we have today.
One thing that was not wanted at any of these meetings was a parking garage. Please do not take what we have left of paradise and put up a parking garage.
We citizens spent a little over $200K to restore the pool 9 years ago. Florida matched that amount with a grant.
Unfortunately the inspection did not reveal the flaws and missing aspects of the restoration, resulting in the closure and emptying of the pool and the continued slum like condition of the restrooms.
We have an estimate of c. $550,000. to regenerate and reopen the pool-an amount easily gotten from the penny tax increase.
Lake Worth citizens do not ned to be exposed to and harassed by another construction project at our beach park.
Restore what we have at the pool and preserve the natural ambience of our 19 acre ocean front treasure.
Right! If we want retail, there's shitty place. The beach should be an oasis away from the city not a money grubbing machine.
Can we loose the “casino” out of the name please.
I really didn't want to go to the "charadette" but like a moth to the flame, I ended up there sometime after Lynn who apparently made a big splash with Katie.
I was surprised to find it a little more productive than I thought it would be. There were the predictable CAVE people (Citizens Against Virtually Everything) and some recent transplants who were more visionary and outspoken about the potential of our beach in distant years.
Several attendees made reference to the fact that when they try to use the restaurants, inevitably there is a delivery truck sitting blocking the view of the ocean at our ocean view restaurants. (Another design flaw of the visionaries) Another flaw was the space intended for an "Upscale Restaurant" overlooking the ocean. Problem is that if you ask anyone what you see if you look out over the ocean at night? (Assuming a high end restaurant would be open at night) You see NOTHING!! Blackness. The real view is of the Intracoastal Waterway and the city beyond, the sunsets and boats traveling North and South and under the bridge.
The service vehicles should unload BEHIND the restaurants. There is NO convenient parking for the ocean view restaurants. All of it leads to a long walk, even for handicapped patrons.
Someone brought up an idea to build a deck even with the top of the dune for parking with ceiling high enough for service vehicles to deliver to the rear of the restaurants that would also serve as overflow parking below. The deck could extend to A1A where you might envision a restaurant overlooking the city lights, with beautiful sunsets and our new natural area just the other side of the road. Since the deck would be at dune height, parking would be more convenient for the shops already there on the ocean side.
Parking is by far the biggest source of revenue at the beach. Residents (You know... us who have to pay to maintain our beach park) have been banished to the lower lot for designated spots. Not acceptable. The County requires 611 (I think) parking spots in their requirement and we have already shown we can move those County spots anywhere we want them to be.
With the "No Lights" requirement for the top of the dune restaurants, we possibly need to look at putting some amenities closer to the Intracoastal to take advantage of THAT waterfront. They could be lit properly and have more than adequate parking.
It's been called the "Casino" since inception.
Why do some people always want to get rid of the past? Why? don't you have any pride in our history here?
Millennials and/or Generation?--the ME generation.
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