Publix wants West Palm Beach to let a supermarket planned for downtown be built with less open space and fewer active storefronts, saying the city’s current rules put the store’s future “in jeopardy.”
The popular Florida grocer is planning a two-story, 70,000-square foot store one block north of Clematis Street, complete with a liquor store, an in-store dining area and an outdoor plaza.
The 51-foot-tall building and a surface parking lot would occupy the entire 600 block of Banyan Street, including a 0.8-acre lot sold to it by the city. In addition to the supermarket, the Publix site will have a liquor store and separate retail space.
But Publix says the city’s rules for downtown projects weren’t written with grocery stores in mind and need to be
rewritten for what would be the downtown’s only full-service supermarket.
Downtown development rules call for most of the property along Rosemary Avenue to include storefronts or other “active uses.” The regulations also require 5% of the 3-acre lot to be developed as public open space and 25% as private open space.
But the open space requirements don’t make sense for a grocery store, a Publix attorney argued at an Oct. 14 meeting of the city’s Downtown Action Committee.
“Clearly whoever wrote the original downtown master plan wasn't contemplating grocery stores in this requirement,” said Matthew Scott, a land-use attorney representing Publix.
Publix doesn’t plan to provide private open space at the store but would develop the required amount of public open space – a narrow outdoor plaza that stretches along Rosemary Avenue,
That plaza would include seating and shade provided through large, curved planters. But the public space is too long and slender to meet the city’s requirements.
Scott explained that providing enough space for parking and a delivery area is critical for a full-service grocer, making the requirement to set aside so much space for other uses problematic.
The city’s planning staff said it supported the proposed reductions in open space but opposed Publix’s request to reduce the amount of storefronts along Rosemary Avenue.
Chris Kimmerly, the city's principal planner, told committee members that it is a city priority to extend a pedestrian-friendly corridor north along Rosemary and into the city’s Historic Northwest neighborhood.
Leaving that corridor without active storefronts “establishes an undesirable street condition on Rosemary Avenue,” he said.
“We want these smaller commercial bays within the downtown,” Kimmerly continued. “We want them to extend along North Rosemary Avenue.”
But Scott warned that the requirement to provide storefronts along Rosemary could endanger the project.
“I'm just I'm going to be direct,” he said. “If we don't get the (exemption) on that, the project's in jeopardy.”
Members of the Downtown Action Committee were sympathetic to the store’s requests. They voted to endorse a waiver that reduces the amount of “active uses” required along Rosemary.
The committee also supported a new set of city rules for grocery stores that loosen the open space requirements.
One Publix request to which they did not agree: an exemption to the requirement to provide a shower for employees.
The exemptions and new rules for grocery stores still require approval by city commissioners.
Andrew Marra is a reporter at The Palm Beach Post. Reach him at amarra@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Publix says downtown West Palm store ‘in jeopardy’ without exemptions
