The downtown Mr. C tower traded 57 condos for a restaurant and a pickleball court, the mayor says your library could start charging a fee if Amendment 3 passes, and the resort just got permission to build piers almost twice the legal length.

Let's get into it.

The planning board signed off Thursday on a redrawn Mr. C residences, the 2.1 acre project west of South Federal Highway between SE 3rd and SE 5th, and the unit count fell from 190 to 133.

In their place is a 5,977 square foot restaurant on SE 3rd Street, tentatively called Bellini, with 128 seats inside and 30 out.

The plan also adds a 1,653 square foot pickleball court and a 523 square foot dog park, and the building goes to 139 feet, under the downtown cap. It still needs the Community Redevelopment Agency.

Approved in 2023, approved again now, and still a parking lot.

Source: Boca Daily News

Mayor Andy Thomson spent about 75 minutes taking questions at the Spanish River Library on Wednesday, and most of it came back to Amendment 3 on the November 3 ballot.

If it passes, he said the city may need an annual library fee and water and sewer rates closer to what they actually cost.

The amendment would lift the homestead exemption on non-school property taxes from $50,000 toward $250,000 and needs 60% to pass. Boca currently charges $3.66 per $1,000 of taxable value.

The tax break and the fee are the same conversation.

Source: Boca Post

The planning board voted 6-0 on Thursday to let The Boca Raton swap three tired wooden finger piers for four floating ones and a 32 slip marina on Lake Boca, with nobody turning up to object.

City code caps a finger pier at 60 feet. Two of the new ones come in at 104.2.

Getting there means dredging about 2,807 cubic yards of lake bottom and moving roughly a dozen Lesser Starlet Corals to a new rock patch. The state and the Army Corps still have to sign off.

Lake Boca is wide. It is about to feel slightly less so.

Source: Boca Daily News

The Go Pink Luncheon is twenty two years old now, and it is the one that fills the resort ballroom with women in head to toe pink. The last one raised over two million dollars in a single afternoon.

Survivors take the stage and tell it themselves instead of being talked about, and there is a runway in the middle of lunch.

It runs 10:30am to 1:30pm, seats and tables are still open, and the money goes to the breast centre at Boca Raton Regional Hospital.

The Boca Raton, 501 E Camino Real, Boca Raton.

Wear the pink. They mean it.

Gumbo Limbo runs a guided walk after the gates normally shut, through the open-air butterfly garden and the outdoor tanks, with the Intracoastal going pink behind you. It is 6pm to 7:30pm, $10 for residents and $13 if you are not one, reserved ahead under activity 155420.

Gumbo Limbo Nature Center, 1801 N Ocean Blvd, Boca Raton.

Aztechy is back, and they take over Nomade for the night with a set menu, Afro House DJs and a room of people who all had to ask to get in. It starts at 9pm and it is 25 and over. You request a seat rather than buy one, and they tell you the number once you are approved.

Nomade, 6030 SW 18th St, Boca Raton.

Lynn's drama programme is playing Peter Shaffer's Amadeus with live musicians and Mozart written as the rock star, and seats start at $35 in a 750 seat hall. It runs 7:30pm Friday, 2pm and 7:30pm Saturday and closes 3pm Sunday.

Wold Performing Arts Center, Lynn University, 3601 N Military Trail, Boca Raton.

Peter Galman has reworked Ibsen around one question, when did my life become something I was expected to maintain instead of something I was creating, and the Shakespeare Troupe is playing it for the last three nights. Curtain is 7:30pm Friday and Saturday and 3pm Sunday, at $39, or $15 with a student ID.

Sol Theatre, 3333 N Federal Hwy, Boca Raton.

Tulane turns up 14-2 and unbeaten in the conference on a ten match run, and FAU has it at home, where the Owls are 7-1. First serve is 6pm on Abessinio Court.

Eleanor R. Baldwin Arena, 777 Glades Rd, Boca Raton.

Rubixx plays new wave and eighties top forty in a brewpub with a hundred and fifty beers on. They are on 8:30pm to 11:30pm and tickets start at $19 all in.

Crazy Uncle Mike's, 6450 N Federal Hwy, Boca Raton.

JETSET Pilates West Boca is running a thirty minute class inside the rescue, in costume, and then they let the dogs out onto the mats. Every dollar goes to the shelter. Sessions are 10am and 11am, it is $30, 16 and up, and you bring your own mat.

Tri-County Animal Rescue, 21287 Boca Rio Rd, Boca Raton.

The second Changing Lives Monster Dash raises money for their mental health programme, and everybody gets a medal and a shirt whether they run it or walk it. It goes off at 7:30am and entry is $40, open through race morning.

Flagler Credit Union Stadium, 777 Glades Rd, Boca Raton.

Kapow runs dim sum and tacos instead of eggs, and on a Saturday the mimosa lands before you have even started the $18 bottomless. It runs from 11am and the bottomless is 21 and over.

Kapow Noodle Bar, 402 Plaza Real, Boca Raton.

The Flamingo Flea puts vintage and small batch makers inside Crazy Uncle Mike's with live music and the brunch menu running alongside. It is 12pm to 4pm and walking in is free.

Crazy Uncle Mike's, 6450 N Federal Hwy, Boca Raton.

The South Florida Pickle Festival puts a makers' market, five bands and a run of pickle cocktails in the park out west, plus an eating contest and a mechanical bull shaped like a pickle. Saturday is 12pm to 8pm and Sunday 11am to 5pm, on timed entry, at $10 a slot.

Sunset Cove Amphitheater, 20405 Amphitheater Circle, Boca Raton.

Lynn opened the season ranked eleventh in the country in the coaches' poll, and Saturday is the current squad against the women who swam there before them. It starts at 11am at the McCusker Pool Complex.

Lynn University, 3601 N Military Trail, Boca Raton.

Rise Tactical Defense is running a two hour women only seminar on the jiu jitsu mats, capped at twenty so everybody gets hands on a partner. It runs 3pm to 5pm and it is free.

Reyson Gracie Florida, 713 E Palmetto Park Rd, Boca Raton.

Barrel of Monks puts comedy in the attic room above the taproom, not a clean show, with a food truck parked outside and Belgian beer coming up the stairs. Two showtimes, 7pm and 9pm, at $20, and the brewery says it sells out.

Barrel of Monks Brewing, 1141 S Rogers Circle, Boca Raton.

Norma Jean Wright of Chic, Carol Williams, Musique, Company B, Alisha and Cherrill Rae are all on the same stage in west Boca, which is the actual singers rather than a tribute band. It starts at 6pm and reserved seats run $47 and up.

Olympic Heights Performing Arts Theater, 20101 Lyons Rd, Boca Raton.

The Boca Raton Green Market is back for the season with produce, baked goods, artisan food, flowers and live music, and it is the one inside the city rather than the one everybody drives south for. It runs 9am to 1pm and walking in is free.

5th Ave Shops, 1954 NE 5th Ave, Boca Raton.

The Beachbladers skate a loop of streets most people never get inside and then go to brunch, and about forty are already in. They meet at 9am, roll at 9:15am, back by 11am, and it is free. Intermediate, so you want to be able to stop.

Meet at 450 Thatch Palm Dr, Boca Raton.

Charlotte arrives bottom of the conference and FAU can climb on a win, which makes this the half of the weekend double the Owls should take. First serve is 1pm.

Eleanor R. Baldwin Arena, 777 Glades Rd, Boca Raton.

The Pole Circus Showcase brings pole, chair, floorwork and twerk divisions onto a black box stage, with vendor booths, a home pole as the grand prize and a costume contest for the audience. Doors are 3pm and tickets run $40 to $59.99.

Boca Black Box, 8221 Glades Rd, Boca Raton.

Sunset Sangha drums on the lakeside grass until the light goes, and there are loaner drums if you turn up with nothing. It runs 4pm to 7pm and it is free. Bring a chair.

Countess de Hoernle Park, 1000 Spanish River Blvd, Boca Raton.

Biergarten keeps happy hour pricing running from open to close on a Sunday, twelve straight hours of it, across twenty four taps in an open-air garden. It goes 12pm to midnight and there is nothing to book.

Biergarten Boca, 309 Via De Palmas, Boca Raton.

Nômade belongs to Mary C. Webster, who grew up in Ireland, spent years moving through Africa, Europe and the Middle East, and then built a 250 seat room in Boca to put all of it on one menu.

The baskets and the glassware on your table were designed by the woman who owns the place, at her own studio.

Order the Peking duck dumplings and the avocado crispy rice, and the lamb lollipops if there are a few of you. Executive chef is Zoltán Kovács. The kitchen runs to 10:30pm and the room stays open to midnight.

Nômade, 6030 SW 18th St, Boca Raton.

Ask for a table at the back. That is where the room is.

Facial Mania Med Spa is the one out on the south side that does laser, facials and body work in the same room, and the women on the floor are licensed technicians rather than whoever was free.

A technician goggles you up and works the handpiece down one section at a time herself, so somebody is watching your skin the whole way.

Memberships start at $49.99 a month. They are open 10am to 7pm Monday to Friday and 10am to 5pm Saturday, which is the only beauty room in town still going at seven. The company has been running since 2017.

Facial Mania Med Spa, 6063 SW 18th St, Suite 105, Boca Raton. 561-515-5127.

Wear something you can roll up.

Tribe is Ray Ruiz's, fifteen years into coaching, and the format he built front loads the hour with strength and leaves the conditioning for the end, when you have nothing left to hide behind.

Every class is coached the whole way through, so you leave having done both halves rather than quietly picking the one you like.

Classes run 60 minutes and the floor is open 5am to 6pm, seven days a week. They also run golf specific training and private sessions, and your first class is free.

Tribe, 1000 Holland Dr, Suite 1, Boca Raton.

Get there early. The warm up is the easy part.

Sponder Gallery is Deborah Sponder's, started with her mother Elaine Baker in 1989, and the Donald Martiny pieces are mounted straight onto the wall with no stretcher and no canvas, so the brushstroke is the entire object.

If the piece you want is not hanging where you are standing, they will bring it to your house so you can see it on your own wall first.

The Dan Christensen show runs to January 15. They carry 86 artists and estates, Alex Katz, Frank Stella and Helen Frankenthaler among them, plus Harry Benson's photograph of the Beatles pillow fight.

Sponder Gallery at The Boca Raton, 501 E Camino Real, Boca Raton.

Go on a weekday. You will have it to yourself.

Cason United Methodist Church lays the patch out across the lawn under the oaks every October, and it runs all three days this weekend, about fifteen minutes up the road.

Walking in is free and you pay only for the one you carry back to the car, so it costs nothing to go and take the picture.

It is open noon to 7pm Friday and 9am to 6pm Saturday and Sunday, running through October 31. Pumpkins are priced by size.

Cason United Methodist Church, 342 N Swinton Ave, Delray Beach.

Go early Saturday. The good ones move fast.

Nicole Henry has a Soul Train Music Award for traditional jazz, and she is at Arts Garage on Friday and Saturday at 8pm, in a two hundred seat room where you carry your own bottle to the table. Seats are $61.50 to $66.50 with the fees already in.

Arts Garage, 94 NE 2nd Ave, Delray Beach.

Lori Jill Designs has been doing windows for more than twenty years and runs a Hunter Douglas Gallery showroom, so the motorised ones go in through the manufacturer's own certified installers rather than whoever is free that week.

Someone comes to the house, measures every window and leaves you holding the quote, and the same certified team comes back to fit them.

Ask about PowerView motorisation if you want them on a timer. The consultation is free, and they are open 9:30am to 4:30pm Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, and to 4pm on Wednesday.

Lori Jill Designs, 5501 N Federal Hwy, Suite 1, Boca Raton. 561-752-1072.

Start with the room where you keep closing the blinds.

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Saturday is the one that needs a plan. Costume pilates with the rescue dogs at ten, the makers' market inside the brewpub at noon, pickles until eight and comedy upstairs at seven, and you can genuinely do four of those if you keep moving and eat standing up.

The thing to steal out of this issue is the gallery. You can stand in front of a wall of paint with nothing holding it up, decide you want one, and have them drive it to your house so you can see it on your own wall before you say yes to anything.

The Good in Boca Team