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.

‘Not a stop sign:’ Raceway fight hits brick wall but new path opens

Commissioners approve warehouse complex at Palm Beach International Raceway, then endorse search for new racetrack site.

With their attorneys waving the white flag, county commissioners Thursday reversed a January decision and approved zoning to allow a massive warehouse complex at the shuttered Palm Beach International Raceway.

But they rolled out a potential final lap for racing fans who have been fighting the warehouses for more than a year: At least three commissioners said they would seek a way to build a new raceway in Palm Beach County.

Trump Corner: Delayed turn-lane project may be done by August

Work ramps up again on Palm Beach County project seven months after initial completion date; stalled supplies to blame.

Seven months after its scheduled completion date, workers are back on the job at the so-called Trump Corner in Palm Beach Gardens. But completion is more than two months away.

When the county scheduled a 10-month construction project to add a right turn lane at Military Trail and PGA Boulevard, supporters of Donald Trump (and Gov. Ron DeSantis) complained construction was a convenient way to silence their weekly Friday rallies, particularly in the run-up to the governor’s reelection.

Hear this: HearUSA amps up Gardens’ presence; adds store, national training center at Mirasol

The national hearing aid retailer rolls out ‘Center of the Future’ at new store in Palm Beach Gardens, where it has its corporate headquarters.

HearUSA, a leading hearing aid retailer, has placed its Palm Beach Gardens headquarters at the center of its plan for massive growth.

With its grand opening ceremony May 9, attended by about 150 people, HearUSA will not only have its first store in the city it has called its corporate home for more than 35 years but will make the location at Mirasol one of six training bases in the United States.

That means jobs for young people looking to jumpstart a career that ultimately can land them six figures.

How Palm Beach Gardens reached so far west

City’s recent annexation flowed from a massive annexation more than 30 years ago.

With last week’s Palm Beach Gardens City Council vote finalizing the decision to annex 300 acres along Northlake Boulevard, we look back on how Palm Beach Gardens spread so far west in the first place, a story first told on the Palm Beach Gardens Historical Society Facebook page.

What is now Avenir and the Sandhill Crane Golf Club came into the city in a 5,638-acre annexation in March 1991.

The biggest piece was the 4,763-acre ranch owned by Charlie Vavrus, who at the time proposed a city for 42,000 residents. That land is now called Avenir, approved in 2016 for nearly 4,000 homes. And they’re rising rapidly.

Magistrate backs warehouses, can’t tell landowner to keep racetrack

Special magistrate recommends Palm Beach County Commission reverse decision on warehouses at former Moroso raceway on Beeline Highway.

“Warehouses vs. Racetrack 2” is coming to a County Commission near you.

A special magistrate is backing the warehouses.

Gardens 300-acre land grab riles Acreage

Backers say move harms effort to form new village: ‘They’re basically grabbing all the commercial property.’

To Palm Beach Gardens leaders, it’s a natural step, squaring off the city’s western boundary by adding 300 acres of valuable property to the tax rolls.

To the residents who want to create a city in The Acreage, it is a near-death blow.

Why warehouses? Racetrack owners press case before judge

County defends decision to deny warehouses at shuttered Palm Beach International Raceway, says owner failed to show that circumstances have changed.

It took five minutes for retired Administrative Law Judge Bram Canter to announce that mediation had failed between Palm Beach County and the landowner seeking to build warehouses at the former Moroso racetrack.

Then the real hearing began.

The City Council nobody voted for

All five Palm Beach Gardens City Council members won their current seats without facing voters.

Three Palm Beach Gardens City Council members started new terms Wednesday, rounding out a council in which all five members won their current seats without a single vote cast.

Mayor Chelsea Reed and new council members Bert Premuroso and Dana Middleton assumed the seats handed to them in November when no one filed to run against them.

A year earlier, Marcie Tinsley and Carl Woods started three-year terms under the same scenario.

Here’s why Martin County’s new growth plan could blow up its urban growth boundaries

Former commissioner argues wording changes remove restrictions, could allow racetracks or water parks on vast undeveloped lands.

Martin County’s huge swaths of rural, undeveloped land are beginning to look a lot like a playground for the rich and famous. But that could change.

For years, developers, many from Palm Beach County, viewed golf resorts as the greatest return on their Martin County land investment.

Jupiter-based basketball legend Michael Jordan opened his exclusive Grove XXIII golf course in 2019. CityPlace developer and Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross is proposing 36 holes on 1,200 acres a few miles to the west. A proposal from the builder of the revered Friar’s Head course on Long Island wants to replicate the exclusive, private golf-course experience on 3,900 acres in Martin County as well.

But causing the most stir is the proposal for a golf-course community from Discovery Land, a high-end vacation destination company catering to the likes of Tom Brady and George Clooney.

(This story also appears in today’s edition of Stet, a newsletter focusing on news of Palm Beach County. Sign up for a free subscription and check it out.)

Gardens taps loan to renovate Burns Road Community Center

$20 million loan to pay for work at Burns Road and widening bridge near new FPL campus, as well as 12 pickleball courts.

The 40-year-old Burns Road Community Center is in line for a $30 million renovation, one of four projects that will benefit from a loan approved by the Palm Beach Gardens City Council Thursday night.

The council agreed to a proposal from City Manager Ron Ferris to borrow $20 million without raising taxes to pay for the improvements.