Headwinds
⛵ As we top 250 subscribers, welcome aboard and thank you for joining our adventure. For you today: a downtown flashpoint, close-up on FPL, Airbnbs in the spotlight, Pat's surf quiz and the Four Arts.
This week’s newsletter is a 4-minute read.
First up: West Palm Beach wants to boot the Photographic Centre
Is West Palm Beach getting enough economic oomph from its decision 15 years ago to give a chunk of prime Clematis Street storefront to the Palm Beach Photographic Centre?
Someone at City Hall doesn’t think so.
Eight months ago, the city sued to evict the center from its 26,000-square-foot space at the base of the city library at 415 Clematis St.
Some may think it’s about time that a not-for-profit given free space in the heart of downtown gets shoved aside to make way for something that could do more to enliven the nightclub- and restaurant-driven scene.
For Art and Fatima NeJame, the couple who started the Photo Centre in 1986 and accepted the city’s overtures to move to Clematis in 2008, there’s little the city could bring to the site that could do more to draw outside visitors.
Why it matters: The question of what’s best for the street is at the heart of the legal argument posed by the city. It wants a judge to decide if the center has violated its lease by failing to prove that it is living up to lofty goals.
The complaint says the center has failed to show that it's listed in an annual report among the Top 5 cultural attractions in Palm Beach County, which would excuse it from making payments on a $1 million city loan.
Only there hasn’t been such a report published since 2017. While the center has made no payments, it says it doesn’t have to because the Top 5 standard can’t be met because the report doesn’t exist.
There’s more to the story here.
NextEra Energy stock hits headwinds
At $76 a share, NextEra Energy is working on a comeback.
The share price tumbled Jan. 25, when Florida Power & Light Company CEO Eric Silagy, 57, abruptly announced his retirement, and FPL’s corporate parent, NextEra Energy (NYSE: NEE), warned investors of campaign finance accusations filed in the wake of Silagy’s political adventuring.
Juno Beach-based NextEra has denied the allegations, filed in a Federal Elections Commission complaint, here. But Wall Street was rattled. Share price slid 10 percent in 11 days.
Not exactly the wind at their back, but: Despite the black eye, President Biden’s sweeping Inflation Reduction Act law throws billions at efforts to slow climate change, including incentives and tax breaks to companies producing more renewable energy.
NextEra’s more than 100 wind farms — and its pole position as the country’s largest generator of renewable wind and solar energy — puts it at the top of companies expected to benefit.
But is it politically correct in Florida? Gov. Ron DeSantis has been hammering Environment, Social and Governance policies — ESG — adopted by investment firms and businesses. Other countries, he says, push ESG because they “do not want us to be energy independent.”
NextEra is banking on ESG. The company, which poured millions into conservative Florida PACs and groups in Florida’s 2021-22 election cycle, is all in on the “E” part of ESG, even if some of its political friends aren’t. It’s one reason analysts are bullish. Don’t take our word for it: You can read about NextEra’s efforts, and the reasoning behind them, in its 2022 annual ESG report.
Outlook? Sunny. The median consensus 12-month price forecast for NextEra is $95 a share.
Also: Two weeks ago, we marveled at how Boca Raton-based incarcerations REIT Geo Group (NYSE: GEO) had pushed back against prevailing political winds and won the affections of Wall Street influencer Michael Burry. (See: "The Big Short.”)
A downside surprise. Although the company beat fourth-quarter revenue estimates, it missed the Street’s profit expectations on Valentine’s Day, dropping by 14.2 percent in intra-day trading. It closed at $9.54 Friday.
Lake Worth Beach is at a crossroads with Airbnbs
The short-term vacation rentals that have taken root in residential neighborhoods can be both a revenue windfall and a source of angst for tourist towns.
On the plus side: Free-spending visitors who patronize shops and restaurants and a rising tax base fueled by demand for rental property.
On the minus side: The potential for noisy neighbors and an amped-up housing market that challenges locals who are struggling to make ends meet.
In the middle: Lake Worth Beach. Thanks to a rarely enforced municipal law enacted before the state granted broad protections to short-term rentals, LWB elected leaders have more options to manage them than many cities do, Joe Capozzi writes.
The decision before commissioners: Start enforcing a rule requiring a minimum of 60 days for vacation rentals or abolish the 60-day rule and allow short-term rentals to operate with little city control.
Read what’s at stake and what will happen next at byJoeCapozzi.com.
It’s the quiz!
We’ll have the answer in next week’s newsletter.
🎭 561 Insider: So much to see at the Society of the Four Arts
It's Carolyn here to tell you that I love to take out-of-town company to the Society of the Four Arts.
Why you should go: Visitors are always curious about Palm Beach, and the Four Arts is remarkably accessible. To me, it represents the excellence that wealth can command and the quirky spirit of the Palm Beach of long ago.
Pro tip: The programs are concentrated in the traditional winter season calendar — November through April. Now is the time to visit.
What to see: Live music performances, art exhibitions, $10 Friday movies, talks, a library with a grand public reading room that anyone can join for 30 bucks a year.
The botanical and sculpture gardens are free (check the hours before going; after all, it is Palm Beach).
The number of Four Arts members is famously limited to the seating available in its main auditorium, and the swells get the first chance at tickets.
But there are often moderately priced tickets available to us non-members, and about half of the programs are free with just a reservation required.
All programs are open to the public.
Four Arts spokesman David Darby points out that new this season are six designated family-friendly performances.
One’s coming up: A presentation by the Miami City Ballet School of “Rita Finds a Home.” is at 2 pm Saturday, Feb. 25. It is free. Reserve here.
Mark your calendar: The Garden Club of Palm Beach puts on an over-the-top (and free) flower show at the Four Arts that only happens every two years. No reservations required. This year, it’s on April 15 and 16.
The Society of the Four Arts, 100 Four Arts Plaza, Palm Beach, 561-655-7226
🏆 It’s back. Not only do the World Series champion Houston Astros train in West Palm Beach, they once again are showing off Major League Baseball’s grandest prize, the Commissioner's Trophy. You can get a selfie with the trophy Thursday, Feb. 23, at the Clematis by Night celebration. The team showed off the prize in West Palm Beach once before: in February 2018 after winning the World Series in 2017.
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