11/22/2022
DELRAY BEACH NEWS
Despite concerns, a Delray Beach development that would add 267 apartments is back on the table
By Wells Dusenbury
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Nov 22, 2022 at 7:00 am
DELRAY BEACH — After initially being shot down, a new apartment complex that would add 267 units in Delray Beach along Congress Avenue is back on the table.
The development, Alexan Delray, would consist of two five-story apartment buildings at 1155 S. Congress Avenue and be the the latest in a string of projects that would add more than 1,500 apartments to the Congress Avenue corridor.
The Delray Beach Planning and Zoning Board initially denied the project, citing a variety of factors, including the workforce housing units being priced too high, the type of apartments and the lack of a commercial element to the development.
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City commissioners, however, overruled that decision by vote of 3-2 after the developer appealed the ruling, keeping the proposal alive. The prevailing sentiment among commissioners who voted in favor of the project was the desire and need for more housing in the city.
One of critiques from the planning and zoning board was that 60% of the units, 161, would consist of one-bedroom apartments, which is far above city guidelines, which state that one-bedroom units can only account for 30% of a project’s total units.
City Commissioner Adam Frankel, however, said during a recent public meeting that those guidelines don’t make sense in the current environment.
A new 267-unit luxury apartment complex is being proposed for Delray Beach on this 6.74-acre site along Congress Avenue, continuing a surge of development along the Congress Avenue corridor. With the addition of the new project, more than 1,500 new apartments are in development along that stretch of Delray Beach west of I-95. Photographed on Friday, Sept. 9, 2022.
A new 267-unit luxury apartment complex is being proposed for Delray Beach on this 6.74-acre site along Congress Avenue, continuing a surge of development along the Congress Avenue corridor. With the addition of the new project, more than 1,500 new apartments are in development along that stretch of Delray Beach west of I-95. Photographed on Friday, Sept. 9, 2022. (Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel)
“Speaking to some of the younger people that work in our downtown, [there] is the need for 1-bedroom places,” Frankel said. “So many during the pandemic and right after, they’re going to cities to our north where that’s more available. I don’t know many projects around that offer that,” he said. “I like [this] project.”
Alexan Delray is planned for a 6.74-acre lot just north of Linton Boulevard that is mostly empty. The property also includes a 29,250-square-foot warehouse building that’s been vacant since 2012. The complex will feature161 one-bedroom units, 88 two-bedroom units and 18 three-bedroom units.
The complex will also include 245 surface parking spaces and a 158-space parking deck.
The project would “redevelop an underutilized blighted property” and “provide needed investment along the Congress Avenue corridor that will enhance the area and encourage re-investment in the area,” the developer’s representative, Jeffrey Costello, said in a letter to the city.
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Of the 267 units, 54 would be allocated for workforce housing at the county’s moderate income level, which is between $72,240 to $108,360. A one-bedroom unit would cost between $1,380 and $2,070 a month under those pricing guidelines.
As a sweetener for the Alexan Delray project, the developer is offering to donate $350,000 to the Delray Beach Housing Trust Fund to build affordable housing elsewhere in the city at the “very-low, low, and/or moderate income workforce and affordable housing” level.
The project, however, has not received final approval and will go back to the planning and zoning board for further consideration.
Congress Avenue has become prime territory for developers as of late due to the large swaths of undeveloped land along its route.
In addition to Alexan Delray, three other major housing projects are in development along Congress Avenue:
Parks at Delray will add 747 apartments and townhomes on a lot that has remained vacant for 14 years, just south of Linton Boulevard off Germantown Road.
Delray Central is proposing an eight-story building that would include 271 residential units, more than 1,000 square feet of commercial space and a seven-story parking garage at 1625 Congress Ave., just south of Linton Boulevard.
Aura Delray Beach is building more than 276 apartments along Congress Avenue, at 2105 W. Atlantic Avenue.
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