Serving Highland Beach and Coastal Boca Raton
February 2018
Delray Makes Room Tourist-friendly community clearing way for influx of new hotels
Volume 11 Issue 2
Boca Raton
Trump flight restrictions are a boon to Boca airport By Rich Pollack
ABOVE: The Colony Hotel, built in 1926, remains a Delray destination. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
By Jane Smith The Delray Beach mantra has long been that it is a city where you can live, work and play. But with one major hotel under construction and three more planned in the coming years, that slogan might morph to: Visit for a day and stay for a holiday. Located in the downtown core, just north and south of bustling Atlantic Avenue, the hotel boom could add 565 rooms in the coming years. The five-story Aloft hotel under See DELRAY on page 10
LEFT: The Colony in the late 1930s. Delray Beach Historical Society
Park users band together in effort to replace toxic gardening products Three women who met while walking and enjoying nature in Boca Raton’s parks watched with concern as city workers sprayed chemicals to kill weeds and pests. Deciding they needed to take
Inside Cataloging history
Writing the book on area libraries. Page AT1
action, they banded together to launch Green Boca Now. Their mission is to persuade the city to go green in its parks by ending the use of nonorganic herbicides, pesticides and insecticides that they say are toxic to insects, trees, wildlife and pets. They pressed their
Hospital receives $35 million
Three donations to go toward Boca Regional expansion. Page 5
See AIRPORT on page 4 Jan Grenell (left), Lauren Quinn and Erna Sullivan, pictured at Red Reef Park, say their Green Boca Now group is getting good cooperation from city officials about testing new ideas.
Along the Coast
By Mary Hladky
President Donald Trump’s repeated visits to South Florida have been characterized as disruptive to many local travelers and as detrimental to a few local businesses. For the Boca Raton Airport and some surrounding restaurants and hotels, however, the frequent flights to Palm Beach by Air Force One have a silver lining. Revenues at Boca Raton Airport, based in part on the amount of fuel sold by two aviation companies, skyrocketed in 2017 as business jets that usually would land at Palm Beach International Airport went south while the president visited Mar-a-Lago rather than go through additional security screenings. “Our fuel-flow revenues last year were $130,000 over budget,” said Airport Authority Executive Director Clara Bennett. Helping to drive up that number was a weeklong presidential visit between Christmas and New Year’s Day that pushed fuel sales at the airport to record levels. Jet fuel delivered in December, according to airport statistics, climbed more than 57 percent, rising to about 886,000 gallons, compared with 562,156 gallons in December 2016.
case with the city’s Recreation Services Department, the Greater Boca Raton Beach & Park District, city advisory boards and have appeared twice before the City Council. “Boca is going to make it
Tim Stepien/ The Coastal Star
See GREEN on page 22
Art with a message
‘Washed Ashore’ show at Mounts Botanical highlights plastics pollution. Page H1
Festival of the Arts Boca event to gather famous faces and voices. Page AT13