Martino: Avenir, will it deliver its commitments?

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The Palm Beach Post recently highlighted the progress of home building at the Avenir development in Palm Beach Gardens. The Avenir development contains a total of 4700 acres. Approximately, half of those acres are to be developed into a mixed use concept of homes, commercial, office, and corporate space. The remaining acreage is dedicated to environmental preservation. The Post article’s salient points were the distinctiveness of the various Avenir neighborhoods under development, the luxury, opulence, and diversification of home choice in these neighborhoods, as well as, the affluent pricing. It also implied that the contrasting neighborhoods are uniquely bound together by certain developer architectural requirements in their gated entry features and homes, and connected by predetermined roads. Home prices released, thus far, range from $600,000 to $3,500,000. Thus, it appears “Avenir will cater to the upper ends of the market.”

Approximately, 6 years after its unanimous development approval by the then City Council of Palm Beach Gardens the Avenir development is well on its way to taking its place among the elite communities of Palm Beach Gardens and financial success. That’s a good thing for the City. Today’s City Council now must ensure that Avenir’s promises and commitments to make the City a better place for our existing, as well as, their new residents are carried out as the authorizing ordinance provides and insists.

Avenir’s commitment to relieve, divert, and capture traffic on Northlake Boulevard by becoming a destination hub for the western communities and its new residents promotes the reduction of traffic trips east and west on Northlake Boulevard. The scheduled development of commercial, office, and corporate space, perhaps, even auxiliary government offices will enhance the opportunities for jobs, for shopping, for professional and medical offices, for recreation and restaurants, as well as, other life necessities needed by these western communities. Construction of the new collector road from Northlake Boulevard east to the Beeline Expressway as pledged by approval of Avenir must begin in earnest. These commitments should advance the reduction of traffic trips east and west on Northlake Boulevard. Avenir must be a “traffic reliever and reducer” for Northlake Boulevard as promised during the various public meetings and hearings leading up to its approvals. The advancement and scheduling of these commitments need to be publicly discussed by the City Council now rather than later.

Avenir’s commitment to set aside 100 acres for economic development while deeding 50 of those acres directly to the City and entering into a public-private partnership to entice a suitable corporate tenant needs to be formulated for public consumption. Avenir’s precedent setting assurances to preserve the environment by permanently deeding over to the properly designated governmental entity nearly half of Avenir’s 4700 acres for environmental preservation is precedent setting. It will create an opportunity to connect approximately 100,000 acres of conservation lands from the east coast of Florida to Lake Okeechobee. These promises are worthy of time-table discussion by the City Council and update for the public.

Avenir is a French word that means “future”. With the recent western community annexations and the approved developments of the last several years, the “future” of Palm Beach Gardens’ western growth management is taking shape now. As west meets east is the City ready?