Huge Project Proposed for Glades Road

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Residents of Palma Vista are concerned about a project proposed for the south side of Glades Road between Home Depot and 95th Avenue. This would be across from the Glades Road library.

Johns Glades West parcel in red near Home Depot and Library. Satellite image and data by Google.
Johns Glades West parcel in red near Home Depot and Library. Satellite image and data by Google.

The proposal, called Johns Glades West (or Johns Glade West) calls for:

  • 169,000 square feet of commercial space with restaurants, a theater, retail and a grocery store
  • A 133,000 square foot parking garage for the stores
  • 7 residential buildings, 5 stories each, with a total of 456 units and a clubhouse all totaling 650,000 square feet of residential space
  • A 112,000 square foot parking garage for the residences
  • A total of approximately 2000 parking spaces

It is our understanding that the developers will make a presentation to the Palma Vista Homeowners Association on November 21st at 7 pm. Some homeowners have expressed concern insufficient notice and about having “5 story buildings looking down on our single family homes.”
This would seem to be a very intensive use of the property with major traffic impacts on Glades Road. Our best guess is that the developer is floating a plan it knows will never get approved and they’ll come in later with a real plan for something much less.
Below is a close-up of the stores section of the plan.
johns-glades-west-stores
And next the homes section:
johns-glades-west-homes
PDF of the project plan is below:
[gview file=”https://westbocanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Johns-Glades-West_PSP.1.pdf”]

Repeat Offender Recklessly Injures Deputy on 441

Traffic on US-441 was blocked from Glades to Yamato this morning after a serious accident near Kimberly Road. Hector Mauricio Mazariegos (age 31, Coral Springs) was arrested and charged with several offenses.
According to the Sheriff’s report:

P-1 (the deputy) was working a traffic enforcement operation on State Road 7 just south of Kimberly Blvd with several other deputies. P-1 obtained a speed reading of 97 mph on V-1 (Mazariegos on the motorcycle) in a 45 mph zone.
P-1 stepped into the center lane, faced southbound and was waving V-1 over. According to witnesses the deputy had been out in the roadway for more than enough time for the rider to see him and stop. The deputy was wearing a neon green reflective vest at the time. V-1 slowed and tried to drive around P-1, but at the same time P-1 feared V-1 was going to run him over and moved slightly to his right.
V-1 impacted with the deputy, then made a heavy brake applicated (leaving a lengthy skid mark) and overturned. V-1 slid to final rest at Kimberly Blvd.

Mr. Mazariegos has quite a history in the courts, as explained below the scene photos.

By our count, Mazariegos has had 9 traffic cases (7 of them criminal) in Broward County dating back to 2007:

He also was arrested in 2015 in Palm Beach County for driving without a valid license. Despite his lengthy history, that charge was resolved with a fine and “adjudication withheld.”
Similar to a case we reported last year, the prosecutors and courts in Palm Beach and Broward County seem to have a policy of going easy on serious repeat traffic offenders. In the previous incident three young males were badly injured. Now it’s a deputy taking the hit.
State Attorney Dave Aronberg is running unopposed in this year’s election so we can expect another four years of lax enforcement. Mr. Mazariegos has probably run out of luck.
PBSO reports the charges against Mazariegos as:

  • Reckless Driving resulting in serious bodily injury
  • No Driver’s License causing serious bodily injury
  • Driving without a motorcycle endorsement
  • Driving an unregistered vehicle
  • Attaching an unassigned tag to a vehicle

Mazariegos’ Facebook page indicates he works (or worked) for Fit Foodz Cafe, which is on Clint Moore near 441.

Boca Italiana Review: Excellent

boca-italiana-front
There’s a new Italian restaurant in West Boca and it’s excellent. Boca Italiana is located in Piccadilly Square (north side of Glades just west of the Turnpike), close to Jimmy the Greek and not just in physical distance. The Karaloukas family runs both restaurants.
Boca Italiana replaces Armadillo Café. The interior layout is the same, but the design changed. When you walk in the door you enter a smaller bar area:
bar
The hostess will greet you and then seat you in the larger room:
interior
There are about 15 tables, some for two or four, and a few larger tables for big groups.
And that brings us to the food, where a restaurant should shine and Boca Italiana does. Entrees include soup or salad plus garlic rolls. My companions had pasta fagioli and said it was good, with beans, pasta, carrots and celery. I had a salad which was fresh and colorful:
salad-italiana
The garlic rolls were also good, and notably different from some other places as they’re not covered in oil.
garlic-rolls
We also ordered the garlic cheese bread, which was unnecessary but reasonably priced and enjoyable.
garlic-cheese-bread
Service was also excellent. Before the entrees they offered to replace silverware and otherwise were readily available and responsive.
For entrees one companion had the veal parmigiana. It was a nice piece of meat, well prepared and with a traditional sauce.
veal-parm
Our younger companion was delighted with the angel hair pasta, which came with diced tomatoes and plenty of garlic.
angel-hair
I had the chicken scarpariello. The chef did a solid job of balancing sweet with spice, using two or three different kinds of peppers and better quality sausage than typical.
scarpariello
There is no standard dessert menu with the menu saying to ask the server for desserts of the day. We chose the blackberry cheesecake, which was outstanding.
Boca Italiana looks like a winner. While not cheap, the prices are competitive with other sit-down Italian restaurants in the area, and include soup or salad. A good example of the pricing is the veal parm at $19.95. There is also a lunch menu with most dishes under $10, and there’s a kids menu with dishes at $6.95.
Make reservations or call ahead. This is an especially good place to go ahead of a night at the Boca Black Box.
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Boca Italiana is at 8221 Glades Road. Their website isn’t operational yet but their Facebook page is up and running. Phone is (561) 430-3170.

Corner Bakery Cafe Near Town Center

All photos copyright Warren Redlich 2016; free to share if you credit West Boca News.
All photos copyright Warren Redlich 2016; free to share if you credit West Boca News.

Corner Bakery Cafe is a nice little spot just east of Town Center Mall on the south side of Glades Road. If you’re familiar with Panera, it’s similar in style but it’s a step up in atmosphere and quality.
Image and map data by Google
Image and map data by Google

We were invited to try out some dishes there and as usual we liked it. Their most popular item is the Chicken Pomodori sandwich (they call them Panini). Here are a couple pictures, from above and inside the sandwich:
pomodori
pomodori-inside
The Chopped Salad was huge, fresh and delicious. They had me at bacon.
chopped-salad
Please note that although the salad was very good at the time, it doesn’t keep for long if you bring it home. That’s a problem with any dish that has fresh tomatoes. We brought most of this home and ate it that night, and it was still okay but it would not have been any good the next morning.
The Cuban Press sandwich, on the other hand, was still good the next morning when I ate the second half of it. This is not a traditional Cuban but I liked it better. Both the cheese and the ham seemed to be a better grade than what I’ve had in Cuban places in Miami. The bread was also excellent.
cuban
We also got a “trio” of sides including hummus, cavatappi pasta salad, and Southwest Avocado. The avocado was our favorite.
trio
There’s a lot of room inside for dining, and a few tables outside as well.
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corner-outdoor
We also understand that they like doing fundraisers for local schools and groups, especially at dinner time.
Corner Bakery Cafe is at 2240 NW 19th St, Boca Raton, FL 33431.

Dastjerdi Arrested Again for Aggravated Stalking

Update: Mr. Dastjerdi appeared in court on Wednesday. Prosecutors moved for pre-trial detention and the court granted that motion, meaning he will be held without bond. The case has been assigned to Judge Charles Burton.
The Sun-Sentinel reports that Dastjerdi targeted his former business partner, threatening to rape the man’s wife and blow up their house. Court records indicate the offense (or one of them) occurred in late November, with the case filed and warrant issued on December 9th.


dastjerdi
According to website BocaBusted.com, former West Boca resident Ahmad Dastjerdi was arrested Tuesday on three counts of “Aggravated Stalking – Follow, Harass, Cyberstalk, Credible Threat to Person.”
We reported on Dastjerdi’s previous arrest for similar charges back in 2013.

Mugshot from 2013
Dastjerdi mugshot from 2013

Dastjerdi was convicted in early September and sentenced to 60 days in jail for harassing phone calls to his former neighbor in the Escondido community. In that trial the jury rejected the felony aggravated stalking charges.
Escondido is on the east side of Lyons south of Glades. Dastjerdi now lives in East Boca. He is a certified electrical contractor and owns a business called Remote Electric, Inc.
The Sheriff’s booking blotter shows, at this writing, that Dastjerdi remains in custody without bond.
In researching this story we noticed that someone purporting to be Ahmad Dastjerdi posted comments on a story we wrote in January of 2013 about a local tire store. These point to an Ahmad Dastjerdi Facebook page that contains comments similar to those he was accused of in the trial. We cannot verify if this is actually Dastjerdi.