Palm Beach Gardens Archives

The mystery man behind $29 million BallenIsles buy

Maryland biotech business owner takes control of prime parcels on PGA Boulevard at BallenIsles entrance.

He owns not one but two multimillion-dollar homes in north county.

He graduated from MIT at age 19.

He got his start running a life-sciences company with the help of his father, whose company later sued him.

His company was selected to participate in Operation Warp Speed to respond to the COVID pandemic. He holds numerous patents. But his name does not even appear on his own company’s website.

And now, property records show, he has paid nearly $30 million for vacant land outside one of the most prestigious addresses on PGA Boulevard in Palm Beach Gardens — BallenIsles.

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.

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.