Everybody and a Lama Showed up for Royal Palm Place’s 60th

By Marci Shatzman

What better way to celebrate your 60^th anniversary than inviting everybody in town, a live lama, a juggler and a car show to the party?

Hundreds of people were checking out the petting zoo and other activities an hour after Royal Palm Place in downtown Boca Raton opened its four-hour event Saturday morning. There was even a line for face painting. “We loved the petting zoo, especially the goats,” said Laura Poklemba, whose young daughter already had a rainbow on her cheek.

Families with little kids, couples and pet people with dogs on a leash walked around the shopping and dining complex filled with things to do, buy, eat, watch and even take part in. Kids and adults filled in a big paint-by-numbers-type outline of the Plaza. That’s where Marta Batmasian, co-owner with her husband Jim, was hanging out and happy to share memories when Investments Limited bought the property that was already there. Sort of. The place was half empty. “In six months, it was fully occupied,” she said.

“I remember June 24, 1987. This was known as the first upscale shopping center. Fifteen acres. I would come by and pick up cigarette butts with a broom,” she said. “In a couple of years, we realized a component was missing…residential. So, we built two buildings,” now named Royal Palm Place to match the plaza in the adjoining neighborhood. Their latest plans for an addition are a new hotel on Federal Highway, she noted. A farmer’s market on the plaza is 8 a.m. to noon every Sunday through May 4.

Marta Batmasian added Boca Raton’s official Walk of Recognition 29 years ago this fall. The annual ceremony and reception at The Addison with the Boca Raton Historical Society honors people who have improved the city by adding a permanent star under the statue and on the walls of Boca Raton’s original architect Addison Mizner.