![]() In addition to a recent upgrade of customs facilities that will allow for international passengers at its airport, a railway station connecting the city to South Florida’s high-speed Brightline network is planned to open in 2022. “Palm Beachers need to leave their city limits to experience the offerings in West Palm Beach, while our residents can learn, work, live, and play within our borders,” he adds.Īlmost exactly a century on from that game-changing bridge, Boca is still investing in transport infrastructure. We have all that, and with a far stronger business presence, three universities, grade A schools for all ages of students, 47 parks, and much more.” “They also have a financial services presence, along with their beaches, as well as the Mizneresque shops and eateries. “Palm Beach is great, for what it is,” allows Mayor Singer. It all sounds lovely - but is there any rivalry with the city’s bigger and more glamorous sister up the coast? ![]() ![]() It’s hard to think about living anywhere else.” “You can still be socially distanced but be together and be outdoors. We’re in the pool, at the beach, on the boat,” she says. “We are in the water basically any time we’re outside. Not only did she already have a family who love aquatic activities, but she also welcomed a second child during the pandemic. The city’s amenities were especially appreciated by its residents during Covid-19, says Cristy Stewart-Harfmann, president of the Junior League of Boca Raton, a leading local philanthropy. “This was the place we chose to raise our children,” he says. After graduating from Harvard University and living in Manhattan, where he met his wife, Bella, the couple moved to Boca in 2011. Singer, a lawyer, grew up 30 miles south in Fort Lauderdale. Photo courtesy of The Boca Raton Resort & Club ![]() “In business and vibrancy, we punch above our weight.” The Boca Raton Resort & Club, designed by Addison Mizner, is the city’s most famous building “We have the charm, natural beauty, and elegance of a smaller city and the strong business presence and cultural offerings of a much larger city,” Mayor Scott Singer tells Avenue. Today, the city hosts more than 200 companies and about 40 corporate and regional headquarters, including ADT, Office Depot, and Modernizing Medicine - swelling the population to roughly 100,000 and growing. Attracted by a favorable business environment, IBM arrived in 1967 (its first personal computer was invented here in 1981), and many followed. His vision of manicured lawns and gated neighborhoods alongside abundant golf courses and parks still defines the city’s ambience.īeyond its looks, however, Boca Raton also has a brain. The architect went quickly to work, setting the tone with his monastic coral stone Ritz-Carlton Cloister Inn in 1926 - now the Boca Raton Resort & Club - which remains a city landmark. Early that decade, the first fixed-span bridge over the town’s inlet connected it to a coastal highway, which brought in a steady stream of vacationers and prospective land buyers.īy 1925, the council of the newly incorporated town of Boca Raton had enlisted prominent local architect Addison Mizner - known for his “Mizner Mediterranean” pastiche of Spanish and Latin American styles - to create “the foremost resort city on the North American continent.”Ī prospectus published by the Mizner Development Corporation that year (which described its boss as doing “more than any other one man to make Palm Beach beautiful”) announced that Boca Raton would be “a resort as splendid in its entirety as Palm Beach is in spots.” In that hopeful pronouncement, the modern Boca Raton - a bridesmaid to its elder and richer sister city 27 miles up the coast - was born. At the beginning of the 20th century, the settlement of Boca Ratone (as it was then spelled) was little more than a picturesque string of farms, whose 100 residents made a living coaxing pineapples out of the sandy soil.īut the 1920s ushered in a South Florida land boom, and with it came a literal bridge to the future.
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