🏗️ Exclusive: Eastward, Ho!
It's Fat Tuesday! Let's get this party started. High-rise living in Lake Park, a code to improve Broadway, a new option to alert police and Stet at The Sphere.
Exclusive: Developer pitches nearly 600 apartments in downtown Lake Park
Thirty years ago, the state’s efforts to get developers to rebuild older coastal sections of South Florida failed. Suburban sprawl proliferated.
Now builders can’t get enough.
With help from governments creating zones for high density buildings next to potential train stations, Eastward Ho is happening.
Case in point: Lake Park, a community of fewer than 9,000 residents.
The developers of the 24-story Nautilus 220 twin towers on the Lake Park waterfront have proposed a 16-story, 595-unit rental apartment building in downtown Lake Park at the northeast corner of 10th Street and Park Avenue.
Developer Peter Baytarian’s 10th & Park Avenue LLC spent nearly $5 million since April 2022 to buy four city blocks, three of which are now vacant. He shared plans, which are undergoing town review, at an open house for neighbors Jan. 31 at Brooklyn Cupcake, 796 Tenth St.
Baytarian also is behind Oculina, the twin towers first reported in Stet Palm Beach to be proposed for a former Winn-Dixie site on the Riviera Beach side of Silver Beach Road, across from Nautilus.
Baytarian values the Lake Park project, 12 stories of apartments atop four stories of parking, at $350 million. Studios to three-bedroom apartments would rent at market rates.
“This is a transformational project in Lake Park,” said the project’s planner, Brian Terry of Insite Studio.
Another transformation could take place across the street.
Since October 2022, Alder at Lake Park has spent $5.2 million to buy about half of two blocks between Park and Foresteria from 10th to 9th streets. The company is registered to Daniel Goldstein, managing partner of E&M Management, a New York real estate company.
How we got here: The buying spree began as the town allowed high-density development on about 10 large tracts in the downtown core.
The idea: Create demand for a commuter rail station, proposed for town-owned land southwest of Park and 10th and add customers to reinvigorate retail on Park Avenue.
“The CRA board and commission has supported a vision of more intensity and density that supports massing in that area,” said Vice Mayor Kimberly Glas-Castro, a planner.
For the Residences at 10th & Park, Baytarian is asking the town to approve 203 units per acre. The Park Avenue Downtown District zoning limits the zone’s overall average density to 48 units per acre. A typical suburban neighborhood is about two units per acre.
Yes, but: No officials are talking publicly in Palm Beach County about how to raise the massive public investment needed to bring Tri-Rail to the easternmost tracks so that its low-price service would be available in the urban cores of downtowns from Miami to Jupiter.
📍 Code draws a crowd on Broadway
About 150 people turned out for an update on the land development code for the Broadway corridor in West Palm Beach.
Strange thing: Even the planner overseeing the new code, Jason King, noted the turnout Feb. 7 at the Manatee Lagoon far exceeded expectations for such a “dry” subject.
He conceded conditions are bad along Broadway, with drugs and prostitution rampant.
It may take years, but if the city sticks to the code, that will change, he said.
King is with Dover Kohl, the Coral Gables planners hired by the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency to draw up a code to protect the residential communities along Broadway from 26th Street to 59th. Work began in June 2023 on the $285,000 contract.
He showed pictures of vacant lots, many owned by the city. Then he showed what they could look like if development follows the code.
The code would dictate height, spacing and types of buildings that can be built in the 150-foot wide corridor that runs next to historic neighborhoods, including Old Northwood.
He suggested pocket parks to enliven the dead space formed 30 years ago when the city closed off Old Northwood roads, creating cul-de-sacs that reduced traffic in the neighborhood east of Broadway.
Buildings would be allowed three stories by right. Owners could go to six stories if they include affordable housing for low-income residents (60% to 80% or 80% to 100% of average median income) or if they lease space to locally owned businesses. Six stories, not 30, King said, a reference to building heights downtown.
Buildings would face the street, with parking in the back to buffer neighboring homes.
Commercial properties would be allowed to have residences above, a way to bring back affordability.
Residents liked most of the ideas. They voted on their phones on several points, with 91 percent saying the code is on the right track or probably on the right track.
What’s next? The plan is a work in progress. King expects it to go before city advisory boards in May. At that pace, the City Commission could approve it by September, he said.
Follow the action: The code revision has a website, here.
➡️ To register or not to register?
A new Florida law raises a quandary for people with autism, mental illness and other special needs.
What it is: The law formalizes guidelines for local police agencies to offer a Special Needs Registry.
Do residents sign up so police can have a heads-up if a resident may not be responsive to typical police commands? One Jupiter officer, where the program has been in place for eight years, says it helps deescalate potentially explosive situations.
Or do they worry about painting a scarlet letter on a loved one, exposing them to ridicule or stigma if information on the confidential registries leaks out? One D.C.-based watchdog worries that in a small town, word travels and the registered resident could face housing or employment discrimination.
Joel offered more details and a link to registries offered by Jupiter and Palm Beach Gardens police departments here in the February edition of The Voice, the newsletter for NAMI Palm Beach County.
🌙 The juice
News with a tang.
📚 Nearly 80% of students who used the state’s new, near-universal private-school voucher program in Palm Beach County were already attending private schools. (The Palm Beach Post)
🔎 Ethics watchdog agencies would be prevented from initiating their own investigations based on anonymous or informal tips, under proposed state legislation, raising alarms. (The Palm Beach Post)
🧑🏼🎨 Sean Yoro, the internationally acclaimed artist known as Hula, returned to downtown West Palm Beach on Feb. 9 to restore the two murals he painted eight years ago beneath the Royal Park Bridge. (ByJoeCapozzi.com)
⛪️ Palm Beach Gardens-based Christ Fellowship is paying $24 million for the Macy’s Furniture Store building at 9339 Glades Road west of Boca Raton. (The Real Deal)
🏈 Nine minutes that show why former Chicago Bears star Devon Hester of Riviera Beach is headed to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. (SB Nation)
🦉 FAU countdown
Twenty weeks and counting: How long does it take a state university to respond to a public records request? In the case of Florida Atlantic University, it’s been 20 weeks and counting.
At stake: The public’s right to know the details behind the sudden July 29 closure of the $35 million Florida Atlantic University Stiles-Nicholson Brain Institute in Jupiter.
After the university began stonewalling in September, we submitted a written request on Sept. 22 for records compiled in response to questions we had previously submitted. We await the university’s response.
🔮 The atmosphere at The Sphere
Carolyn, here. It’s been a Super week for Las Vegas, and by coincidence, I made my first visit this month.
Our goal: The U2 concert at Vegas’ newest landmark, The Sphere.
The vibe: Hyper-reality. The 336-foot dome casts a spell on visitors from the jump. Its round-the-clock display on the Strip’s skyline is visible from Harry Reid International Airport.
The experience: Blue lighting and low ceilings on the entrance ramps evoke a feeling of being enveloped by an alternate universe.
It can be a steep walk to the auditorium seats.
Once there, the screen consumed our field of vision. I could see Bono on a stage far below and projected at eye level in front of me in what felt like 3D.
U2’s music tends to be melancholy, but the visual effects are joyful.
The bottom line: Photos cannot capture the dreamlike effect.
What’s next: The band has announced dates through March 2.
Dead & Company plans 24 shows starting May 16.
🗓️ Coming soon: 2 deadly minutes
Stet Palm Beach is partnering with The Palm Beach Post to bring you a detailed account of what happened the day in May 2022 when an off-duty police sergeant shot and killed 33-year-old Romen Phelps in the theater at the Dreyfoos School of the Arts in West Palm Beach. For the first time, we’ll offer details from police investigations of Phelps’ behavior starting the night before through the moments leading up to his fatal shooting on the theater’s stage. Look for a special email with the story soon, and published at palmbeachpost.com.
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