Pete's On the Beach: ANOTHER LOOK AT THE PLAN FOR THE PIER RESTAURANT - 6/18/04

Is the new plan for the fishing pier just a dumb business deal on the part of city officials or is there more to it than that? Some citizens think so and have urged law enforcement agencies to take a look at the scheme. At the minimum, it appears that there may have been "sunshine" violations, as public contracts are required to be negotiated openly. Even now, it is very difficult to draw out all the "facts" relevant to the proposal.

This is an outline of the plan: Take the pier parking lot, the only place for patrons to park; a portion of a public street that provides access to the beach; and a section of beachfront away from the people and kids of Deerfield Beach and give it to a Boca Raton restaurateur for a fraction of the potential market value of the property.

Pete Boinis gets to use this public land for 54 years and Deerfield Beach gets another "upscale" restaurant that most citizens neither want nor need.

As the approval process moves along, a clearer picture is emerging of a plan for the city-owned pier restaurant far grander than any previously proposed.

Before Boinis unveiled his proposal for a new restaurant on the city property connected to the International Pier before the Community Appearance Board and the P & Z, little was known by the public except that Boinis had teamed up with the city's contractual pier restaurant operator to develop a new idea.

In typical fashion when city staffers and City Manager Larry Deetjen are involved, and we are convinced they are deeply involved, the public was kept in the dark as long as possible in order to stifle what is now certain to be considerable opposition from members of the public. There are still lots of questions to be answered. Lots of questions.

One of the most important questions, of course, is what would be a fair deal for the city if it really needed this plan. As it now stands, it looks as if this would be a sweet, sweet proposition for Boinis and his partners. Paying around $12,500 a month, the developer will be able to build and operate a restaurant on city land that could easily gross that much or more in a day. He or his assigns would enjoy this privilege for more than half a century.

The Boinis proposal is the latest entry in the master puzzle to commercialize and redevelop the beach area for the profit of developers and private investors. The first step was the proposal six years ago to redevelop the Main Beach Parking Lot, which is the largest facility on the beach for parking, for commercial use.

After voters rejected the first proposal for the parking lot, the city established a community redevelopment agency for the beach area and proposed a new scheme of measuring permissible commercial densities on the beach. Technically, this scheme, known as a "regional activity center," would reduce overall densities, but would enlarge considerably the area in which commercial development could take place, thus facilitating such development. The RAC proposal is at the county level awaiting approval, but is in stasis. The county Planning Council has advised the Board of County Commissioners not to allow further RACs on the barrier island. Meanwhile, coastal cities, including Deerfield Beach, are fighting county oversight of development and trying to nullify the county's power to review development plans in the state legislature.

On top of the CRA and RAC proposal is the traffic plan for the beach area, recently adopted by the commission and integrated into the county Long Range Transportation Plan. Taken together with the RAC, this is clearly a plan for expansion of the commercial district and the development of a commercial strip that would extend from the North Beach Pavilion to Hillsboro Boulevard.

In the past few years, Capellini and the city commissioners have given developers almost everything they asked for and now want taxpayers to repair the damage done by excessive and poorly planned development by "realigning" the roads in the beach area. The commission has routinely ignored the city codes which define such things as how much of a parcel of land a new building may occupy. The result is oversized buildings that come right up to the road without the usual setback. Along A1A, this means it would be almost impossible to widen the road in the future without considerable destruction of property on the east side of the road.

At the minimum, this is bad planning which has ignored vocal public concerns and simply refused realistically to consider the impact of development projects on traffic congestion for which there would be no practical solution. In the Boinis situation, supporters claim that the proposal will have no discernible impact on traffic or parking in the beach area. Common sense says otherwise.

When there was a public outcry about the parking garage proposed by a private investment group for the beach area because the plan exceeded the floor-to-area ratios, the commission changed the rules to accommodate the developer. Under Deetjen and Capellini, the commission will stop at nothing to make sure developers get what they want.

The commission has defied the will of the people. They plan to go ahead with a public parking garage on the beach and other projects even though voters time and time again have rejected development of city property. In three separate referendum elections, voters have said they don't want overdevelopment of the beach area.

Now comes the proposal for the pier restaurant by Pete Boinis.

Boinis has formed a limited liability company called Deerfield Pier LLC whose registered address is 7940 Glades Road, the same as Pete's Restaurant in Boca. John Boinis, who is president of Pete's Restaurant, developed the troublesome J.B.'s on the Beach, which is two doors north of the pier site. (For whatever difference it makes, plan supporters are very adamant that John, not Pete Boinis, was the man behind J.B.'s.)

Why do we say "troublesome?" Because J.B.'s on the Beach has been one of the main factors in increased traffic congestion along A1A. No provision was made for parking. Patrons are valeted to the parking lot across the street. Parking for employees was never considered until after construction of the site. Now Pete Boinis is set to make the same mistake at the pier.

The International Pier is city property and no one has a right to build on that land if it is not in the public interest. Boinis is not the legal pier restaurant operator and would not be denied any due process rights if his proposal is rejected.

The city commission is poised to grant a long-term lease of this, one of our most valuable public assets, to Pete Boinis for much less than it is potentially worth. Boinis is asking for a 54 year lease term.

Boinis proposes to pay rent to the city of $150,000 per year. The first proposal known to the public was that Boinis would pay $100,000 per year. This property has a potential market value of millions, judging from the worth of adjacent properties. It would be interesting to know how much this land will be worth in 2060 and how much $100,000 or $150,000 will be worth 54 years from now. (One estimate is that the rent that Boinis and his successors will be paying in the final years of the lease would be around $1,500 2004 dollars).

The proposed restaurant is almost twenty times the size of the fast-food eatery at the pier. It would seat 449 people.

Some opponents of the pier proposal argue that the current restaurant operator, who is the partner in the Boinis deal, is effectively in default, having failed previously to develop the site in accordance with his ten year old lease. Yet the city has not sought to terminate the lease and go out for bids on a new deal.

Instead the city has allowed Pete Boinis to enter the picture, without any competitive process. This investor has, in effect, taken over the pier contract without the prior approval of the commission, and without competition from other potential developers or consideration of other possible plans for this site. Of course, most of this was done without the knowledge of the public.

But we doubt this happened without the knowledge of city officials. In fact, we think the city manager and staff, and probably the mayor, have been in on this project from the beginning.

It is difficult to imagine that Boinis developed such an elaborate and radical plan without the cooperation of key city officials. In a case like this, violation of Sunshine Laws is always a concern.

Evidence of city involvement in the planning of this project is what happened in April, 2003. Almost unnoticed, the commission repealed a provision of the city code which required voter approval of any city lease over 30 years.

The "750K" provision of the city charter requires voter approval of any sale, gift, trade, transfer or lease of city property worth more than $750,000. This was what voters added to the charter in the 1998 referendum election. The main purpose of the amendment was to prevent the city from leasing or selling the Main Beach Parking Lot to private investors for commercial development, but it also applied to all public properties, including the parking lot and street next to the pier.

At the same time, a city ordinance, s. 30-156(d), required voter approval of any long-term lease of city property (30 years+) worth over $1 million. Section 30-156(d) also contained a provision applicable to the sale of city property which had effectively been overwritten by the charter amendment. On April 22d, 2003, the city commission repealed subsection (d) and replaced it with the language of the amended charter, s. 7.09(2).

The pier restaurant concession is a specific exception to s. 7.09(2). However, the code still would have required voter approval of a lease of the pier restaurant and/or the adjacent land if the term were over 30 years and the value over $1 million. Keep in mind that Boinis is asking for a 54 year lease on all the land west of the pier, including a portion of the street. His proposal is not a short-term concession contract of the type contemplated in the exception to the 750K charter provision.

Thus, the repeal of subsection (d) a year ago made it possible for the city to negotiate a long-term lease of the parking lot adjacent to the pier with Pete Boinis or someone else without the inconvenience of an election, which Boinis and city would probably lose.

Was this action merely a "technical correction" of an ordinance that had been partly superseded by a charter amendment, which coincidentally worked to the advantage of Pete Boinis? Or was it part of a plan of which the city manager had full knowledge and worked out with Boinis behind closed doors?

In an article that we posted on this web site in April, 2003, we predicted: "The repeal of subsection (d) would pave the way for a long-term lease of the parking lot adjacent to the pier for a big, full service pier restaurant on city land without having to submit the matter for voter approval."

Another convenient thing happened last year. The fire. You may remember that the city had already approved a site plan for an expanded restaurant submitted by the legal pier operator. For whatever reason, the operator did not move ahead with his plan, and prospects that it would ever happen faded. Then, just as the subject of an expanded restaurant was heating up again, a mysterious fire damaged the restaurant. The restaurant was then closed until March of this year, but reopened after an inexplicably long time and almost at the same time as the Boinis proposal surfaced.

It was also conveniently discovered just after the fire that much of the building attached to the pier, including the restaurant and bait house, was in disrepair, something that would cost taxpayers to fix. This was announced to the commission by the city manager several months ago. As part of his proposal, Boinis has said he will repair the bait house structure. However, the proposed lease provides that Boinis will be reimbursed by the city for any improvements he makes to the pier property in the form of a rent credit.

Then, there is the new traffic scheme for the beach, which was recently adopted by the commission. The details of this plan, which includes a "circulation loop" to redirect the flow of traffic, are outlined elsewhere on this web site.

One aspect of the new restaurant proposal, which was a surprise because it was never mentioned in any of the previous discussions about the pier restaurant and created considerable confusion at the outset, is the closure or partial closure of N.E. 2d Street connecting A1A to Ocean Way. This street provides public access to the beach and also to the main entrance of Howard Johnson's. It has not yet clear what the plans are for Ocean Way south of the pier, if it were no longer usable as a road for vehicular traffic. But this innocuous sounding proposal could be as significant as the "circulation loop."

The consultant who drew up the traffic plan says he did not know about this at all. We half believe him, but the fact is that his plan for the three lane road which would extend from Hillsboro Boulevard to the North Beach Pavilion (or thereabouts) fits perfectly into the closure of 2d Street at this location. It also provides another piece of the puzzle as to what Deetjen and the city want to do with this area of the beach front.

Very soon, we expect the city may also propose the closure of Ocean Way between the pier and Hillsboro Boulevard, converting this into a pedestrian mall that would front on new commercial/mixed use and/or restaurant development between Howard Johnson's and Hillsboro. We already know that Rettger's Resort wants to build a mixed use project that would include a restaurant. What about the vacant land just south of Rettger's? This commercial strip would be serviced by the new three lane road on its west side, which would also front Boinis' new pier restaurant, Ocean 234, J.B.'s and other commercial or mixed use development on the west side of A1A across from J.B.'s and the North Beach Pavilion.

Taken in this context, then, what appears at first to be an over-the-top proposal for the pier restaurant, seems to fit right into a larger plan for a commercial strip extending along the beach front from the North Beach Pavilion to Hillsboro Boulevard, and serviced by a new three lane road which would provide a common turn lane for easier access into the commercial establishments.

Also, don't forget the parking garage proposed for the Main Beach Parking Lot. This would anchor the south end of this commercial strip and make up for parking lost along Ocean Way, if it is closed, and also parking spaces lost by the destruction of hotel parking lots necessary to implement the plan for the "circulation loop."

Thus it appears that the pier restaurant proposal by Pete Boinis may accommodate an even larger plan, cooked up by the city manager and Mayor Capellini, to bring substantial commercial development to Deerfield Beach.

It will not be easy to defeat this proposal. We believe that at least three, or possible four, of the commissioners are already committed to this plan. Four votes are required for adoption.

Local Activists Have a Better Plan for the Pier Restaurant. A Vision for the Historic Pier Restaurant.