How much is Palm Beach Gardens worth?

The pandemic has hit Palm Beach Gardens in the pocket book.

The city’s 10 most valuable properties, worth more than $1 billion, lost $35 million in value as of Jan. 1, as determined by the Palm Beach County property appraiser.

Chief among them is the city’s largest single taxpayer, the Gardens Mall. Its valuation dropped from $360 million to $340 million, figures shared with the city reveal. 

While the top 10 dipped, overall taxable property values rose in Palm Beach Gardens by 3.56 percent to $13.5 billion, keeping Gardens as the fourth most valuable city in Palm Beach County.

The 5.8 percent drop in valuation at the Gardens Mall is good news for Forbes/Cohen, the Michigan company that pays the mall’s tax bill — $7.3 million last year (nearly $2 million of that to the city). 

But it ever-so-slightly shifts the burden for paying for city services to remaining taxpayers.

The bulk of Gardens taxpayers, owners of single-family homes granted homestead exemptions, are likely to see a 1.4 percent bump in their appraised value, the most allowed under state law. 

That means even if the city sets the same $5.55 per $1,000 of valuation tax rate that it has set for the past five years, those homeowners will pay slightly more. 

The city council will set the tax rate this summer based on Property Appraiser Dorothy Jacks’ final valuations delivered Thursday.

Countywide, valuations are up 5.8 percent to $222 billion. Valuations went up in all 39 towns, ranging from the county’s newest city, Westlake, rising 62 percent, to Palm Beach Shores, a town of 1,250 residents whose $635,000 valuation is overly dependent on two timeshare hotels. It rose by less than 1 percent.

Several north county cities grew by a higher percentage than Palm Beach Gardens, headed by tiny Jupiter Inlet Colony’s 9.88 percent growth. 

North Palm Beach grew by 8.09 percent, Lake Park by 6.05 percent, Riviera Beach by 5.94 percent, Tequesta by 5.63 percent, Jupiter by 4.99 percent and Juno Beach by 4.36.

Author: Joel Engelhardt

Joel Engelhardt is an award-winning newspaper reporter and editor based in Palm Beach Gardens. He spent more than 40 years in the newspaper business, including 28 years at The Palm Beach Post. As a reporter, he covered countywide growth, the 2000 election and the birth of Cityplace in West Palm Beach. As an editor, he oversaw probes into the opioid scourge, private prisons, police-involved shootings and more. For seven years, he worked on the paper’s editorial board. Joel left The Post in December 2020. He and his wife, Donna, have lived together in Palm Beach Gardens since 1992. View all posts by Joel Engelhardt