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.

From 3 lanes to 1 lane to I-95 lanes: FDOT aims to uncork PGA flyover logjam

Indiantown Road at I-95 in Jupiter also in line for makeover

The way traffic backs up at rush hour on PGA Boulevard near the Gardens Mall has the attention of state transportation planners.

And the fix is in.

A $7 million solution could be under construction by late 2023, the same time as construction on a $10.5 million project at I-95 and Indiantown Road in Jupiter.

The intersection of bad to worse: I-95 fixes stuck in the slow lane

Work needed by 2040 but projects in a logjam with too much to do, not enough money to do it.

When traffic engineers peered into their crystal ball in 2015 to study Interstate 95 interchanges in Palm Beach County, they saw a major need.

Not just a need to add more lanes to handle ever-growing traffic on the major north-south highway.

They saw 17 interchanges between Linton Boulevard and Northlake where congestion is expected to get so bad that traffic would spill over onto the main highway and cross traffic would be forced to wait longer and longer to let vehicles enter and exit the highway.

The $1.7 million study by consulting engineers Kimley-Horn put into motion a plan that in the next 10 years could cost $450 million at 15 of the 17 interchanges.

‘County to the left of me, Gardens to the right, here I am stuck in the middle with you’ – Song of the Developers

Palm Beach County’s threat to go after developers ups ante in road impact fee dispute with Palm Beach Gardens.

A long-simmering city-county feud spilled into the business community Tuesday as Palm Beach County commissioners weighed a proposal to slap liens on Palm Beach Gardens developers for failing to pay fees they say they’ve already paid.

At issue is continued growth, business representatives said. If developers following city rules are punished by the county, they’ll go elsewhere.

“This will create a black eye for us,” said Michele Jacobs, president and chief executive of the influential business group, the Economic Council of Palm Beach County.

Running on empty: No fix in sight for Northlake at I-95

Traffic will get worse before it gets better.

What will it take to get the Northlake Boulevard interchange at Interstate 95 rebuilt?

It’s been under study since 2015 and first scheduled for construction in 2021.

But not anymore.

Now it’s set for 2025. And there’s no guarantee that will happen.

Gardens gets a shot in the arm: Vaccine site opens

Burns Road Community Center gymnasium prepped to handle 1,000 vaccinations a day.

The gymnasium at the Burns Road Community Center is about to draw crowds to a form of exercise that has nothing to do with basketball hoops and volleyball nets.

The new playbook calls for senior citizens to roll up their sleeves to get a coveted shot in the arm.

Big oaks on chopping block at FPL site in Gardens

The power company is moving a road for its new office building and the oak trees planted in recent years have to go.

Why are workers chopping down oak and palm trees along Kyoto Gardens Drive, that great short cut to the Gardens Mall from Military Trail?

It’s all part of the massive plan for the new FPL office headquarters taking shape along Kyoto Gardens just northeast of the I-95/PGA Boulevard interchange.

The plan for the $67.9 million construction project calls for moving a road.

All track, no train. What will it take to get Tri-Rail to north county?

It will take money and lots of it. And a deal with Brightline. Neither will happen soon.

For the first time since its inception in 1989, Tri-Rail is physically able to run its trains from Miami all the way through Palm Beach Gardens to Jupiter.

Officials have been looking forward to this moment for decades to make good on a promise of delivering commuter rail to north county.

But there’s still a big hurdle in making a short-stop coastal commuter rail service real: Money. Lots of it. In fact, the rail line is still hundreds of millions of dollars away from actually delivering.

Out of retirement and into the frying pan — developer Dan Catalfumo is back

Catalfumo proposes $200 million project in former design center south of PGA Boulevard.

Palm Beach Gardens developer Dan Catalfumo is back.

When last we saw him 10 years ago, the city’s most influential builder since John D. MacArthur had been stripped of his real estate empire under a mountain of debt.

He invested in a chicken deboning business and manufactured a seatless bicycle. He was spending time away from Palm Beach Gardens at second homes in South Carolina and Costa Rica.

Palm Beach Gardens developer Dan Catalfumo. (Provided by Dan Catalfumo)

Now, he’s pitching a $200 million legacy project in Palm Beach Gardens.