Palm Beach Gardens Archives - Page 3 of 8

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.

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.

Panama Hattie’s transformed: Developer Dan Catalfumo puts on the Ritz

Intracoastal Waterway site to be home to 106 condos priced as high as $7.2 million; and now it sports a Palm Beach Gardens address.

Recessed LED lighting casts a warm glow on the cream-colored porcelain flooring. Earth tones dominate the walls, sofas and chairs.

Step into the rarefied air of the newest condo project rising in north county and designers hope you’ll feel as if you’re entering an upscale living room.

But this Ritz-Carlton Residences Palm Beach Gardens — 106 condos to be built at the former Panama Hattie’s site — is more resort hotel than condo commons.

NOTE: This story also is being published today on Stet, a new weekly newsletter covering Palm Beach County. Joel Engelhardt is one of three founding partners at Stet, which aims to provide news and context you won’t find anywhere else. To get the Stet newsletter delivered straight to your inbox, click here: https://stetmediagroup.substack.com. Once you get there, we’ll even explain what Stet is.

No speedway here: Residents win fight to block eight-laning of Northlake

Palm Beach County drops road widening options for western section of Northlake Boulevard despite anticipated rise in traffic from large new communities.

CORRECTION: Due to a reporting error, the original story published Feb. 3, 2023, incorrectly attributed to Palm Beach Gardens City Attorney Max Lohman comments from the audience at the Jan. 13, 2023, Planning Commission meeting. The comments were made by Avenir attorney Brian Seymour, not Mr. Lohman. The story has been updated as of Feb. 5, 2023, to remove the incorrect information.

Palm Beach County planners and engineers, girding for construction of thousands of homes, are certain that sometime in the next 10 years traffic will dictate the eight-laning of parts of Northlake Boulevard.

Residents of the western gated communities in Palm Beach Gardens and West Palm Beach are equally certain an eight-lane road outside their neighborhoods would be a disaster, eliminating slow-down lanes, decorative entryways and lush landscaping to make way for a dangerous speedway.

On Wednesday, the residents won.

Emails show how county helped racetrack-to-warehouse conversion

County staff moved quickly to help landowner avoid zoning obstacles but never publicly told the commission or the public why.

Last May, Palm Beach County staff rushed to avoid a legal challenge over the zoning board vote that blocked warehouses at the former Palm Beach International Raceway site on Beeline Highway west of Jupiter.

Top county officials from multiple departments responded to urgent requests from county attorneys for speedy action to get a seemingly mundane item before county commissioners at their May 26 zoning meeting.

While appearing innocent, the action would clear the way for the conversion of the racetrack to a warehouse complex by removing a potential hurdle for the developer — an action staff never made public or clear to commissioners.

After anonymous text campaign, city manager spending threshold cut in half

City Manager Ron Ferris defends proposal: ‘It isn’t about power. It’s trying to find the most efficient and effective way to deliver our services.’

In a debate shaped by an anonymous texting campaign to block “a dangerous plan” that “puts tax dollars at risk,” the Palm Beach Gardens City Council this month sharply reduced the city manager’s proposal to increase his spending authority.

The council cut City Manager Ron Ferris’ proposal in half, putting the threshold for staff to approve contracts for goods and services at 0.25 percent of the city’s budget, which amounts to $590,000, half of the $1.18 million Ferris sought. The threshold is still nearly 10 times the existing $65,000 limit and far higher than neighboring cities.