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Delray keeps Atlantic Ave. restaurant incentive alive

Hungry restaurant patrons flock to the many eateries along Atlantic Avenue. Would they continue to come if the the avenue's retail shops disappear? Has the downtown evolved into a giant, albeit, expensive food court?

By Palm Beach Business.com

DELRAY BEACH — Atlantic Avenue in the heart of downtown Delray Beach is one of the most vibrant restaurant districts in South Florida. Some might argue that it’s become too vibrant for its own good.

But Delray Beach city commissioners unanimously declined Tuesday to kill an incentive program created 18 years ago to encourage restaurants to move into what was then an oversupply of vacant retail space along Atlantic.

Back in the early 1990s, as Delray began the effort to revitalize the downtown, the city cut in half the number of parking spaces required for a restaurant to open from 12 per thousand square feet of floor space to six, if the new restaurant opened along Atlantic between Swinton and Federal Highway. That made it substantially cheaper to open up an eatery in there than in any other part of the downtown. Restauranteurs snapped up vacant retail space just as the city hoped.

The problem is they continue to do so 18 years later — to the point that some are calling the avenue a giant food court.  Restaurants and cafes have become the dominant business by far on the avenue.  And once retail space gets converted to restaurant use, it stays that way.

The ordinance commissioners considered Tuesday simply would have ended the break, requiring all new restaurants to have a minimum of 12 spaces per thousand square feet regardless of their location in the downtown. The measure was touted as a means toward preserving retail space.

“We think this is a first step,” Planning and Zoning Director Paul Dorling said. Dorling proposed the change.

Downtown Development Authority Executive Director Marjorie Ferrer said there needs to be a balance between retail and restaurants to keep Atlantic Avenue alive. She cited an overabundance of restaurants and clubs in Orlando’s Church Street Station and West Palm Beach’s Clematis Avenue that contributed to the death of one downtown revitalization project and the severe decline of the other.

Andy Katz, a resident of the city’s beach district and an active member of the Beach Property Owners Association, supported killing the restaurant parking break. Katz spoke on his own behalf and not as a representative of the BPOA.

“We need all the variety of a small city in order to be vibrant,” Katz said. “We need a multitude of uses. This incentive needs to ride into the sunset.”

Others, however, argued that restaurants aren’t the threat to retail along Atlantic Avenue but rather the problem is the way people shop in the age of electronic mobility. In an age where someone can whip out a smart phone and buy almost anything from almost any place in the world, traditional retail districts are dinosaurs.

Commissioners, however, acknowledged that the avenue needs shops in order to survive, but questioned whether merely killing off the parking incentive for restaurants would help.

They urged Dorling to take a more comprehensive approach to the downtown, including finding ways to help retail.

“Do we need some retail there? Probably so,” Mayor Woodie McDuffie said. “So does Clematis. So does Lake and Lucerne,” referring to the Lake Worth downtown. “Boca is overloaded with it and Boca is dead. Boca Raton people hide from each other and come to Delray.

“I really think we should take a comprehensive approach. We can come together, study this problem and come up with a solution.”