Boca Raton outlines 2025 centennial plan, partners with arts group Oh Miami

City communications staff on Monday presented an outline for Boca Raton’s year-long centennial celebration in 2025 and described a partnership with the nonprofit arts group Oh Miami to collect resident voices and produce public art.

Ann Marie Connolly, the city’s communications and marketing manager, told the City Council the official centennial date is May 26, 2025, but the signature celebration will be held Saturday, May 24. The plan includes a new multicultural street festival in January, public-art projects, school outreach and a signature celebration in May. Connolly said staff is developing a logo and brand style guide and executing an RFP to hire a marketing consultant; the city expects to select that consultant in June.

Susan Gilles and Mary Czar, who spoke as community partners, previewed a centennial coffee-table book. Czar said the book’s print run would be 4,000 copies at a total estimated cost of $52,000, and asked the city to fund half (a $26,000 contribution) in exchange for copies and sponsor recognition. Gilles outlined school outreach (traveling trunks, lesson plans) and the historical society’s 17,000-image collection assembled for the volume.

Scott Cunningham, founder and executive director of Oh Miami, described the organization’s community-driven arts work, including Zipodes — a ZIP-code‑based poetic form — and other projects that put resident voices into public spaces. Cunningham said Oh Miami would focus on collecting voices from neighborhoods such as Dixie Manor and Pearl City and use resident-generated poems and other art in public displays, digital signs and school programs.

Council members applauded the creative approach but pressed staff for more detail on programming, marketing and timing. Deputy Mayor Drucker urged “aspirational” programming and a larger marketing push leading into January; Connolly said procurement rules limit what staff can disclose until the RFP process concludes but that logo concepts should be presented to council within weeks.

Next steps: staff will present finalized centennial logo concepts for council review, continue partner coordination, and return with marketing recommendations after consultant selection (expected by June). The council will consider budget items tied to centennial projects in upcoming meetings.