Town Center at Boca Raton, long known for its big-box anchors and seas of surface parking, is suddenly staring down a major identity shift. Developers have filed early plans to turn part of the mall into a mixed-use campus with a hotel, hundreds of apartments and fresh retail, while converting the former Sears site into a large green space.
What the application proposes
The City of Boca Raton's Planning Advisory Review shows an application (PZPAR-2026-00015) that calls for an eight-story, 197-room hotel, a seven-story multifamily building with roughly 374 units, and about 140,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space. A related site amendment (PZPAR-2026-00012) focuses on the old Sears anchor, proposing demolition and conversion of that 18.64-acre parcel into permeable green space. Worthe Holt is listed as the applicant, and the filings are currently in preliminary review, according to the City of Boca Raton.
Scope and the land involved
The plan would affect nearly 32 acres of the Town Center property, including former department-store space and surrounding parking areas, shifting that slice of the campus toward a town-center style mix of uses. Coverage highlights the hotel, residential and retail components as the backbone of the proposal and lays out the overall acreage and program alongside the city's more technical case listings, as reported by the South Florida Business Journal.
Ownership and the Sears backstory
Simon Property Group, which owns the core mall property, bought the shuttered Sears parcel in 2025, a key move that gave the company control of the anchor site and cleared a major legal roadblock to redevelopment, according to The Real Deal. That purchase followed years of litigation over who had the right to rework the old Sears box and is the main reason the current plans can even contemplate hotel rooms and housing in that corner of the property.
What happens next
For now, the applications sit in preliminary review. They will need staff approvals, public notices and formal hearings at both the Planning and Zoning Board and the City Council before anything gets a green light. The city's planning page posts the two case numbers, assigned staff and official documents, and it will be the go-to source for future meeting dates and submittals as the proposals advance, according to the City of Boca Raton. Neighbors and businesses along Glades Road can expect outreach and multiple chances to weigh in once the hearings are set.
Why this matters for Boca
The Town Center blueprint taps into a nationwide trend: mall owners turning dead or dying department-store anchors into housing, hotels and experience-driven spaces to keep foot traffic and revenue flowing. Industry coverage notes that Simon and other operators have been reworking former anchor boxes into mixed-use districts at malls across the country, a strategy that starts to make suburban sites feel more like walkable town centers, according to Commercial Property Executive. Those shifts almost always kick off debates over density, architecture and traffic, and Boca should expect the same once the hearings ramp up.
For the moment, the filings simply put specifics on the table: a hotel, roughly 374 new homes, additional shops and restaurants, and a large patch of green where a long-vacant anchor once stood. The city process and public feedback will decide how much of that wish list makes it into Town Center's next chapter. Staff reports and hearing dates tied to the PZPAR case numbers will be posted as they land on the official docket.
