Walter Zill has grown mangos in the southeast part of the city most of his life.

He remembers when cows used to graze along the Intracoastal Waterway and Federal Highway was lined with trees instead of strip malls. He remembers hunting the neighborhood before all the houses sprouted, before the city water tower loomed over his mango grove.

But Zill, 61, is on his way out. He’s selling his grove to the city for use as a park and moving to rural northern Florida.

He cries when he talks about giving up the trees his father planted more than five decades ago. But he says he’s going to retire soon, and he’d rather see his grove become a park than an apartment complex.

“I’ve lived in this neighborhood long enough that I know this neighborhood doesn’t need any more houses,” he said.

With Zill’s exit, Boynton Beach will lose one of its last farmers.

The city is not alone. As Palm Beach County’s population explodes and its property values soar, growers in urban areas are becoming rare.

The county has a program to preserve land west of Boynton Beach for agricultural use. But there’s no equivalent program in the city itself, planning director Mike Rumpf said.

“There isn’t anything that we’ve demarcated to be preserved as agricultural land,” he said.

Only a few pieces of farmland are left in the increasingly urban city, Rumpf said. The agricultural land is a good thing, providing some relief from “built environments,” but parks can serve the same purpose, he said.

Soon they will have to.

When Zill talks about other mango groves in Boynton Beach, he uses the past tense.

His brother used to own a grove across the train tracks to the east. Now Villa Del Sol’s more than 300 luxury apartments stand there.

Chris Wenzel, who owns a fruit tree nursery on Seacrest Boulevard just south of the Boynton Beach city limits, also can list locations where mango groves used to be.

She said it’s a shame so few growers are left in the area because the sandy soil and ocean breeze are perfect for mangos.

“But this kind of land is also perfect for houses. You just can’t compete,” she said.

All over South Florida, development is edging growers out of coastal areas, pushing them west, said Reed Olszack of the Tropical Fruit Growers of South Florida. Meanwhile, mango production has plummeted as Florida growers struggle against foreign competition, he said.

In 1988, Florida grew mangos on 2,900 acres, mostly in Miami-Dade County. By last year, that number had dropped to 1,700 acres, said Jeff Geuder of the Florida Agricultural Statistics Service in Orlando.

Zill said he decided to sell because he’s getting too old to take care of his grove and doesn’t have anyone to follow in his footsteps. And then there are the tempting offers he gets.

“When they start offering you enough money so you could retire on it … ” he said.

Last year, Zill sold about half his 5-acre grove, which is a few blocks east of Bethesda Memorial Hospital, to a developer who gave it to the city. Now he says he’s willing to sell the other half to the city.

City Parks Director John Wildner said he thinks the land will cost the city about $350,000.

The deal isn’t done yet, but Wildner said he has applied for grant money to build basketball courts and picnic areas on the part of the grove the city already owns and to purchase the rest.

James Raulerson, 58, who lives near Zill’s mango grove, said he and other residents are excited about the prospect of having a park in their neighborhood.

“The kids around here don’t really have any place to go, Raulerson said. “They play pretty much in the street.”

Wildner said he’s not sure what will become of Zill’s trees.

They might not be appropriate for a park because some people are allergic to mangos, he said. But he said he hopes to save some of them.

They shield the neighborhood from the train tracks and they will serve as a reminder for future generations, Wildner said.

“There’s historical value to preserving them. It shows that this area once grew fruit trees such as mangos for agricultural and economic reasons,” he said.

Sam Tranum can be reached at or 561-243-6522