DESPERATE TO IMPROVE the downtown experience, the Lake Worth Beach CRA may turn to a prominent commercial real estate firm for help luring new businesses to empty storefronts on Lake and Lucerne avenues.
The Community Redevelopment Agency voted last week to have Anderson Carr draw up a strategy after board members shared frustrations about commercial property owners whose shuttered buildings are stunting the growth of the city’s downtown.
“They are land banking. They are sitting on these properties. They are jacking up the rents and keeping it artificially high for really no reason except to keep them empty so they can carry over their losses for their other properties. It’s not imaginary, it’s there,’’ board member Richard Mahler said at the board’s Aug. 11 meeting.
