Despite pleas from neighbors, Community Redevelopment Agency approves condo project

BOCA RATON, Fla. - The horizon is changing outside Jim Wood's Boca Raton home. Over the last few years two high rises have gone up just outside his neighborhood. Now there will be more.

"We express concerns and those concerns just seem to be ignored," says Wood.

Wednesday Boca Raton's Community Redevelopment Agency approved a nine-story condominium near single-family homes. More than 200 residential units will be built in a little more than a one-acre lot. The project is known as Tower 155.

"We're talking about 179 units per acre, that's a density that exceeds anything that's been approved in downtown," says Ann Witte, who lives nearby.

Witte tried to push commissioners to reduce the size of the project and consider what traffic it could bring to the area. But commissioners sided with those arguing there are not enough condos for sale in the downtown core.

"The project is a perfect compliment to all the infrastructure changes done by the city," says Glenn Gromann, who supports the project.

The approval is a blow to efforts by residents like Witte and Wood who continually fight high rise development.

"It seems like every project that comes along has deviations and they just seem to be approved almost like a rubber stamp," says Wood.

Offices on the Northeast corner of Mizner Blvd and Boca Raton Road will have to be demolished to make way for Tower 155. Construction will start later this year.