Drive south on A1A toward the Boca Raton line and you'll pass the same stretch you've probably passed a thousand times. Condo towers on both sides, the ocean flashing between them, and then, right before the town narrows toward Spanish River, a parcel that has never matched its neighbors. No building. No landscaping crew keeping it manicured. Just 5.6 acres of scrub and shoreline that has sat there, legally undeveloped, since before a lot of current residents ever bought their first place in Highland Beach.
If you've lived here a while, you already know its name. Milani Park has been the subject of town meetings, resolutions, and neighborhood grumbling for so long that it started to feel like a permanent fixture of local conversation rather than an actual project with an end date. That assumption needs updating. This year, the mechanism that kept the fight going for nearly four decades stopped working the way it always had, and the empty lot on A1A is now on a real construction schedule for the first time in its history.
The Clock Was the Town's Best Friend, Until This Year
The land itself dates back to 1987, when Palm Beach County bought two parcels from Lucia Milani for $3.9 million, on the condition that the property become a public park named for her late husband, Cam D. Milani. What followed was three decades of the same basic pattern. The county would commit to building the park, the town would object on traffic and safety grounds, litigation would follow, and the project would get pushed further out.
The pattern hardened into an actual legal structure in 2010, when the county and the town signed a settlement agreement that delayed construction and gave the county two five-year extensions before it would have to build or sell. The county used one of those extensions already. As of the town's own 2026 strategic planning document, one more five-year extension was still sitting on the table, an option the county could have exercised to push construction past 2030 without doing anything at all.
It didn't take that option. In mid-April, Palm Beach County filed permit applications and a compliance package with the town, the paperwork that has to clear before construction can begin. For a fight that has run on delay for 39 years, that's the detail worth sitting with. The tool that always worked for Highland Beach was time. This year, the county chose not to use the time it still had.
What the County Actually Filed in April
The permit package the county submitted covers the physical pieces needed to turn the parcel into a functioning park, according to town officials who reviewed it. That includes:
- A guardhouse with a controlled gate at the parking lot entrance
- An elevated boardwalk connecting the west side lot to the beach
- A combined restroom and lifeguard building
- Water and sewer line connections to the parcel
- Fill work on the west side, mostly to support the new parking area
The estimated price tag for the project is $8.6 million. County officials have said construction could begin as early as June 2026, with a build timeline of roughly 18 months, which would put completion around fall 2027.
One number worth putting next to another: earlier plans for the west side lot called for as many as 100 parking spaces. After years of resident objections about traffic and safety at the crossing, the county agreed to phase in just 46 general spaces for the first stage of construction. That's not a full win for residents who wanted the project stopped outright, but it's a real, negotiated reduction from where the numbers started, and it's the clearest evidence that decades of pushback did shape the outcome even as the larger fight to block the park altogether did not succeed.
The Family That Used to Push for This Park Now Doesn't Want It
Here's the part of the story that surprises people who've only followed it casually. For most of its history, the Milani family was the driving force behind getting this park built, holding the county to the promise made when Lucia Milani sold the land. That changed last year. In a letter to county officials, Cam Milani II wrote that the family now supports the town's position on the park, effectively asking the county to abandon the project or shrink it dramatically.
Lucia Milani herself testified at a county hearing that after years of hearing from Highland Beach residents, her thinking shifted.
They have convinced me that maybe this is not such a good idea after all.
It's a genuine reversal, and it makes for a striking headline. But it doesn't change the legal mechanics of what happens next. The 2010 settlement agreement is between Palm Beach County and the Town of Highland Beach. The Milani family isn't a party to it. County Commissioner Marci Woodward, whose district includes the property, has said there are no plans to reduce parking further despite the family's request. The people who originally forced this park into existence no longer want it, and their objection carries no more legal weight than any other resident's.
What Actually Shows Up at the South End of Town
Assuming the timeline holds, what residents get is the town's first and only public beach access point. Highland Beach's beaches are private today, with no public entry anywhere along its length. That alone is a meaningful change for a barrier island town built almost entirely around condominiums and private residential access.
The park would also formalize access to Yamato Rock, the limestone outcropping just offshore that longtime residents already know informally as one of the better spots along this stretch for snorkeling and fishing. The rock attracts fire coral, angelfish, and damselfish for snorkelers, and snook, tarpon, and jacks for anglers working the shoreline. Right now, using it means knowing where to park and walking in from wherever you can. Under the county's conceptual design, the boardwalk would run over native vegetation that's been left alone for years, with signage explaining both the site's ecology and its layered, decades-long history.
What to Watch For Next
If construction follows the county's April timeline, ground could have broken as early as June, with completion targeted for fall 2027. The Town of Highland Beach maintains its own Strategic Priorities Dashboard, updated quarterly, along with a dedicated Milani Park page that tracks the settlement history and current status directly from the source. Both are worth bookmarking if you want updates without waiting for the next round of town hall discussion.
The larger point for anyone who's called Highland Beach home through any part of this saga is simple. For 39 years, waiting was the town's most reliable strategy, and it worked often enough that it started to feel like the permanent state of things. That stopped being true this year. The county had another five years it could have taken and chose not to take them. Whatever you think about how the park should look or how many cars should be allowed to park there, the era of treating Milani Park as a hypothetical is over.
If you're weighing a move within Highland Beach or just want a straight read on how a project like this affects a specific block or building, the Matt & Nick Team knows this stretch of coast as well as anyone working it. Contact us anytime you want a local, no-spin answer.
