Boca Raton's Memorial Park Master Plan After One Boca

Ten clay courts at the Boca Raton Tennis Center. Two softball fields with hitting stations. A playground, shuffleboard courts and the Tim Huxhold Skate Park, all packed into downtown's oldest civic block. City Hall, the Community Center and the Singing Pines complex sit around them. The city's new planning area covers about 17 acres of city-owned land, including these buildings and the public spaces and rights-of-way that connect them.

Eight months after voters turned down One Boca, the city has reopened the question of what this land should become. This time it is asking residents first. The listening sessions and design charrette are real, and so is the range of options. Still, two of the decisions most likely to change how Memorial Park feels day to day are moving on their own tracks. One is at a skate park site in Boca Teeca. The other is on a ballot question set for March 2027.

A Different Starting Point for Downtown's Civic Block

The last plan came from developers. In February 2025, the City Council unanimously chose Terra and Frisbie Group as its public-private partnership team for redeveloping the government campus. In January 2026, the council approved a 99-year lease and master agreement 4-1 and sent the project to a March referendum, The Palm Beach Post reported. On March 10, 2026, about 74% of voters rejected it, according to WPTV's results coverage. Opponents had pointed to the lease length, traffic and the loss of green space.

The new process starts with the council and the public. On Sept. 8, 2026, the council approved a $519,925 contract with Chen Moore and Associates, plus up to $52,000 in contingency, by a 3-0 vote, Boca Post reported. The work runs in four phases over about six months:

Project initiation, council alignment and listening framework: $132,070
Community listening: $52,620
Design charrette and concept development: $249,350
Final plan and recommendations: $85,885

The money comes from a capital budget line called Resident-Led Memorial Park Enhancements. The city's announcement says plainly that "No final design, park layout, or Master Plan has been approved." In that release, Mayor Andy Thomson said the city wants "to hear the ideas and perspectives of our community as we shape a space that will bring people together for generations to come."

What the Charrette Is Actually Drawing

The charrette is where the plan takes shape on paper. It runs two and a half days and produces up to two conceptual alternatives for four buildings: City Hall, the Community Center, the Tennis Center and Singing Pines. To lower the cost, it was cut from three days, and a separate final public engagement event was dropped.

At the September meeting, one resident framed the question before the planners. "What actually needs to be downtown?" he asked the council, according to Boca Post. He suggested treating the former city library block between Second and Third streets as one site for a city hall, community center and downtown police presence, so Memorial Park could stay a park.

Piece of the civic area	Where it stands as of Nov. 19
Tim Huxhold Skate Park	A replacement-scale skatepark at North Park has zoning approval. Huxhold's own future has not been decided.
Downtown police station	A $125 million bond goes to voters March 9, 2027, with a downtown facility written into the bond language
Tennis Center clay courts	Inside the master plan, with no separate decision since March
Memorial Park softball fields	Maintenance concerns raised in April. A Lake Wyman project would replace one field there.

The Skate Park Question Is Being Answered in Boca Teeca

The Greater Boca Raton Beach and Park District describes its North Park skatepark as a modern facility. It frames the project as a response to the roughly 10,000-square-foot Tim Huxhold park, which the District says no longer meets needs and has no room to grow. On Sept. 3, 2026, the Planning and Zoning Board approved the 1.43-acre skatepark and pump track 7-0. The design includes bowls, a snake run, a street course and shade structures, Boca Post reported. American Ramp Company won the bid.

A third-party appeal was filed Sept. 4, and the District reported that the 14-day appeal period had expired by Sept. 22. The District's project page says the skatepark is still in Public Works review and needs city reviews and permits before construction begins.

In January 2026, the expectation was that North Park would replace Huxhold because One Boca would have redeveloped the downtown site. That reason disappeared in March. The North Park facility is still moving forward, and the master plan says no outcome is set in advance. That leaves the planners with an open question. The roughly 10,000 square feet the skate park now occupies could be kept as a downtown skate spot alongside the new one, or reused for something else.

The Police Station Goes to the Ballot Before the Plan Is Finished

The other moving piece is larger. The city has described its downtown campus as including City Hall, a police station, a community center and a tennis center. Police headquarters is at 100 NW Boca Raton Blvd.

This fall, two concepts were on the table. One was a 16.4-acre central headquarters near Spanish River and Broken Sound boulevards with a small downtown station. The other was a full headquarters downtown. On Oct. 27, the council voted 4-0 to put up to $125 million in general-obligation bonds on the March 9, 2027 ballot. The bond language includes a dedicated downtown police facility, and officials said the headquarters' design and location would be chosen later through a public process, according to Boca Post. This is a separate question from the $175 million police bond that failed in March 2026.

The timing matters for Memorial Park. The plan's six-month process ends with a draft at a council workshop and then a final plan for adoption. The December charrette will produce its concepts before voters decide how the police project gets funded. Every sketch of the civic area will have to leave room for a downtown police facility whose size depends on that vote.

Softball and Tennis Wait on the Plan Itself

The remaining pieces sit squarely inside the master plan. In April 2026, the Community Redevelopment Agency heard concerns about the maintenance and safety of the Memorial Park softball fields, and city staff were asked to price improvements and gather public input. The same discussion described a Lake Wyman project, a playground with ADA upgrades that would replace one existing field there. One Boca had come with plans to move the softball fields, playground, skate park and tennis courts, and those plans ended with the March vote. The Tennis Center is one of the four buildings in the charrette's scope, so the future of its ten clay courts will be shaped there.

Where You Can Still Weigh In

The in-person sessions on Nov. 14 at the Boca Raton Community Center and Nov. 17 at Spanish River Library are over. Several ways to take part remain:

Tonight, Thursday, Nov. 19, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.: a virtual public input session.
Saturday, Nov. 21, 6 to 8 p.m.: the city's Memorial Park information table at the Holiday Tree Lighting at Mizner Park.
Any time: the online survey in English or Spanish.
Thursday, Dec. 10, 5 to 8 p.m.: the charrette introduction at The Studio at Mizner Park.
Friday, Dec. 11, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturday, Dec. 12, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.: design charrette sessions, also at The Studio at Mizner Park.

All sessions are open to the public. Details and questions go through myboca.us/MemorialPark or [email protected].

At The Jessica Gulick Group, we follow downtown Boca's civic decisions closely because they shape the blocks our clients live on. If you would like to talk through what the Memorial Park process and the March 2027 ballot could mean for your part of downtown, Request a Private Consultation.