CityPlace is preparing for a future of “flying cars”in downtown West Palm Beach, taking early steps to build a landing pad for air taxis on top of a parking garage.
The city’s planning board this month gave an initial endorsement to plans for the landing pad on CityPlace
’s Hibiscus Garage, alongside the site of two high-rise office towers under construction in the center of the commercial district.Executives for development firm Related Ross, which owns CityPlace, said the air taxis are likely years away from being commercially viable.
But the company wants to be poised to take advantage of the fledgling transit technology as South Florida grows and major roadways become more congested.
“It’s evolving so quickly,” said Jordan Rathlev, an executive
vice president at the firm. “We wanted to ensure that we had the ability to offer this alternative mode of transportation.”
The company said that the landing pad, or vertical pad, would be built only for electric flying vehicles, not for helicopters or other aircraft with combustion engines. The vehicles are referred to as eVTOLS, short for electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft.
The experimental service is poised for what could be a rapid expansion in South Florida. In December, aviation company Archer Aviation said it was looking to build an air-taxi network that would connect Miami, West Palm Beach, Boca Raton and Fort Lauderdale.
In March, the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration announced that Archer had been selected to participate in the Trump administration’s eVTOL project.
Constructing the CityPlace landing pad would be relatively straightforward, Rathlev said. It requires building an additional level on the garage with extra fire-preventive materials and battery-charging technology for the electric vehicles. The company would also construct a passenger lounge and waiting area.
Rathlev said that CityPlace’s vertical pad would be “agnostic,” built to be usable by multiple company and vehicle types, though that the company would select a single company to manage the landing pad.
“We don’t want this to be a closed network,” he said, “We don’t want this to be an exclusive network.”
A Sept. 15 planning board hearing was the first public hearing on the project, but it is a long way from final approval.
The board’s unanimous vote endorses a change in city zoning rules to allow a landing pad to operate on the garage. But the Federal Aviation Administration would have approve the usage, and Related Ross still must submit a site plan for city approval.
Some residents at the meeting voiced concerns about the noise and potential hazard of flocks of air taxis flying through downtown.
But planner Roger Ramdeen, representing Related Ross, said that the air taxis would be electric and that no aircraft with noisy combustion engines would be permitted. He added that the landing pad would be used on an “as-needed basis.”
“It's not a port,” he said. “It's going to be a stop, kind of like an Uber dropoff and pickup, on-demand service.”
The proposal faced criticism from the city activist group Save West Palm Beach, which advocates for slowing development in the city center.
Fatima Sanandaji, the group’s co-founder, questioned why city officials were taking time to consider a landing pad when residents have been clamoring for the city to focus on other matters.
“Residents are asking the city to address traffic, infrastructure, emergency access and quality of life on the ground,” she said. “Yet at the same time, you're considering a luxury amenity that solves no problem for the people who actually live here.”
The proposal, though, received positive feedback from Planning Board members, who called it an important step to position the city to benefit from an emerging technology.
“I think it's very exciting to at least open the door for a technology that could really allow for the business community and the local community to be at the forefront of mobility,” board member Sam Fisch said. “For someone that was a ‘Back to the Future’ fan growing up, this is akin to a flying car in our in our lifetime.”
Andrew Marra is a reporter at The Palm Beach Post. Reach him at amarra@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Flying cars in CityPlace? West Palm eyes futuristic air taxi plan
