Glades & 441: What's Going On?

See Update below.

A lot of readers have been asking us what’s going on at the corner of Glades and 441. There’s actually two things going on. As we covered previously, on the northeast corner the Shadowood plaza is adding an outbuilding for a larger Walgreens.
But most people are now asking about the southeast corner. That’s the Westwinds of Boca plaza which has Home Depot and Publix. The red arrow in the picture below points to the area where we all some kind of work going on.

We went over yesterday to take some pictures and ask questions. We don’t have solid answers yet, but here’s what we found.
First of all as you can see in the top panorama picture and from driving by, they’ve erected fencing around the “lake” in the northwest corner of the plaza – close to the intersection of Glades and 441.
Next, here’s a panorama shot from just inside the fence that gives you some perspective:

Basically what you see there is a backhoe, some stone, and some debris all around the lake.
Below is a shot with the backhoe’s scoop in the foreground and you can see the extent of the lake. You can see a bit more of the debris around the lake as well. Glades Road and Shadowood Square are in the far background.

In the last photo we’re posting from the site, you get a better view of the debris.

So what are they doing? We’ve heard all kinds of theories. One person suggested they’re filling in the lake and putting up a steak house. We don’t think that’s credible. But – see update below.
We talked to some of the workers and managers in nearby stores. None of them knew for sure.
We have another theory. We’ve been hearing for some time from reliable sources about problems (mainly littering and drug use) around this lake associated with vagrants, homeless people, and/or the people we see begging at the intersections. The lake was surrounded by a lot of foliage so their activities were hidden. We think they’re removing all of the foliage so the troublemakers won’t be able to hide their “misbehavior” in there.
It’s not really a solution to the problem – they’ll just go somewhere else. But that’s what we think they’re doing.
Workers in the nearby stores agreed that there have been problems consistent with what we heard from our other sources in the past.
Update
After originally writing this article, we got a quick comment and did some research – that we should have done in the first place. There does appear to be a plan to fill in the lake and put in more stores:

We’re not sure if the current work is a precursor to that project, or if it’s somewhere further down the road. Filling in that lake will be a lot of work and require a lot of material.
Further Update
A reader in the comments pointed us to a link from the Army Corps of Engineers that sheds more light.
And another reader pointed us to planning review in Palm Beach County.