Milani Park Is Breaking Ground This Month, and the Family It's Named For Almost Stopped It

What made Lucia Milani, the woman whose late husband's name sits on Highland Beach's most fought-over five acres, stand up at a county hearing and ask commissioners not to finish what her own family started?

That question sat unresolved for most of 2025. It matters now because Palm Beach County's own contracting calendar has construction starting this month on Cam D. Milani Park, the 5.29-acre parcel that straddles State Road A1A at the south end of town. If you have lived in Highland Beach for any length of time, you already know the shorthand version of this story: the town fought the park for decades, the county won, and now there's a park. That version is missing the part that actually explains what you're about to see go up on your stretch of A1A, and why it looks smaller and different than what the settlement agreement originally promised.

A Deal Signed Before Most Current Residents Moved In

The land's history goes back to 1974, when Cam Milani and his wife Lucia bought just over five acres in Highland Beach intending to build 130 multi-family units. The Town Commission at the time opposed the plan, and years of litigation followed. A settlement eventually allowed 65 units, but that project never got built either. The land sat unused, a later deal with another developer collapsed, and in 1987 Lucia Milani sold the property to Palm Beach County for $3.9 million on one condition: that it become a public park named for her husband, who had died the year before.

The town kept objecting anyway, and the county did not act on its promise for decades. A 2010 stipulated settlement agreement between the town and county finally locked in the terms: 100 parking spaces on the parcel's west side, beach access amenities including a lifeguard tower on the east side, and a construction window the county could push back as far as 2030 if it chose to. For a long stretch, it looked like the county intended to use every year of that extension. Then in August 2023, County Administrator Verdenia Baker told the town the county would start design and permitting after all, ending what had by then become a 36-year standoff.

The Twist Nobody in Town Saw Coming

Here is where the story stops following the script residents expected. Highland Beach's own Town Commission passed a resolution asking the county to sell the land to a developer instead of building the park, arguing the parcel could be worth close to $50 million on the open market. The county said no. Design work continued through 2024 and into early 2025, with the Brooks architectural firm developing concept plans and county officials telling residents the park was coming whether they liked it or not.

Then, in May 2025, Cam Milani II wrote to county officials with a letter that reversed his family's decades-long position. He asked the county to abandon the project entirely, or at minimum cut the settlement's 100 parking spaces down to 25. Lucia Milani testified at a public hearing in support of the town's concerns, telling the Palm Beach Post she lives near the park and sees her neighbors regularly.

"I understand their concerns, and they have convinced me that maybe this is not such a good idea after all."

County Commissioner Marci Woodward called the family's about-face a complete surprise. For nearly forty years, the Milanis had been the ones pushing the county to honor the deal. Now they were asking it to walk away from the very park carrying their name.

What the Reversal Actually Bought Residents

The county did not abandon the project, but the parking fight the Milani family reopened produced a real concession. Late in 2025, the county and town agreed to phase in parking rather than install the full complement mandated by the 2010 settlement. Town planning documents put Phase 1 at 38 general spaces, while contemporaneous news coverage cited 46. Either figure is well under half of what the settlement originally required.

That gap between what the settlement locked in and what is actually getting built this year is the part of the story worth knowing if you drive A1A past the site regularly. The parking lot you'll see taking shape this fall is roughly a third the size of the one county commissioners insisted they were legally required to build as recently as early 2025.

What's Physically Going In

According to the county's active construction solicitation, the project includes a guard house, an elevated boardwalk, a combined restroom and lifeguard building, and landscaping. The boardwalk is designed to pass over native Florida vegetation the county has allowed to grow undisturbed, with educational signage planned along the route covering both the site's coastal habitat and its human history. That history includes long-standing local belief that the property was once a Native American burial ground, which is part of why the county separately commissioned an artist through its Art in Public Places program to design imagery for the boardwalk's Accoya wood railing panels and seat tops, drawing on the site's coastal ecology and cultural background.

The county's Construction Manager at Risk solicitation lists a preliminary construction cost of $7 million, distinct from the roughly $8.6 million total project figure that includes design and other costs reported earlier in the process. The same solicitation puts the project's start in September 2026, meaning heavy equipment should be arriving on the west side of A1A right around now, with completion targeted for September 2027. County Parks and Recreation Director Jennifer Cirillo has separately estimated an 18-month construction timeline, which lines up with that window.

Why This Changes More Than a Vacant Lot

It helps to know what Highland Beach looks like without this park, because the town's inventory of shared public space is unusually thin. According to the town's own profile, Highland Beach counts exactly two local businesses within its limits: the oceanfront Delray Sands Resort, home to the Latitudes restaurant, and a single real estate office, both operating out of the same building. There is no commercial strip, no public square, and until now, no official public beach access point anywhere in town. Cirillo has said beach access is one of the county's core reasons for pushing the project forward, since the county's comprehensive plan sets a target ratio of beach access to population that Highland Beach currently falls short of.

That context is why residents like Ron Reame, vice president of the board of the Boca Highland Beach Club & Marina adjacent to the site, focused their objections less on the park's landscaping and more on the beach portion itself, including the Yamato Rock formation that can be hidden and hazardous at high tide. Town Commissioner Evalyn David raised similar concerns about beachgoers crossing A1A on foot. Those are the practical questions worth watching as construction proceeds, since they will shape how the park actually functions once it opens rather than how it looks in a rendering.

What to Expect Through 2027

If the county's timeline holds, residents should expect roughly a year of active construction activity along A1A near the south end of town, with the boardwalk, guard house, and restroom and lifeguard building taking shape before the current Phase 2 parking decision even gets scheduled. The county has left the remaining 54 spaces open to a future determination, which means the parking conversation that reopened in 2025 is not entirely closed.

For a town where the biggest recent addition to shared public space has been the subject of litigation, resolutions, and one very public family reversal, that is worth knowing before the fencing goes up. The version of Milani Park arriving this fall is not the one anyone was originally promised. It is smaller, later, and the product of an alliance nobody saw coming.

If you're weighing what any of this means for property near the site, or simply want a clearer read on how Highland Beach's public spaces are evolving, Monica Reiner has been tracking this market long enough to put local news like this in context. Schedule a private consultation with Monica to talk through what's changing in your corner of town.