🏡 Jobs vs. homes
👋 Welcome back. For you today, the cost of economic progress in Riviera Beach, a $35M brain center headache, Lake Worth has a lot to lose, hurricane intensity, and a Secret Service request.
Today’s newsletter is a 5-minute read.
⛴️ Boats on Broadway
Riviera Beach is dealing with concerns that it is walling off Broadway, a street leaders promised would be transformed by shops, restaurants and apartments into a lively, walkable corridor. Three major yacht-related projects along Broadway between Blue Heron Boulevard and the Port of Palm Beach are moving forward this summer:
Safe Harbor Marinas, the world’s largest marina owner and operator, won City Council approval Aug. 16 in a series of 3-2 votes to expand its repair yard between 19th Street and East 22nd Court. But the fight with residents in neighboring Lakeview Park isn’t over. Safe Harbor needs a 4-1 council supermajority to pass those measures on final reading Sept. 6.
Viking Yacht Co., a world-renowned builder, won City Council approval July 19 to add sales and service space just south of Safe Harbor for its popular, 4-year-old Valhalla yacht line.
In a series of 3-2 votes on Aug. 10, auto and yacht dealer John Staluppi won Planning and Zoning Board approval to build a two-story Mariner Marine boat dealership and service yard at 12th Street on the west side of Broadway across from the city marina. Mariner would move from its storefront two blocks north.
“Are we trying to grow as a city or are we now just becoming a storage for boats on Broadway … and is this something that’s satisfactory to our community?” planning board member William Wyly asked.
And as Stet reported Aug. 16, the city owns a block between 22nd and 23rd Street west of Broadway where it wants to build an eight-story City Hall.
Joel offers a closer look at why Lakeview Park residents are upset about Safe Harbor’s plans and what Safe Harbor needs to make its expansion happen, coming Wednesday in Stet.
🔬 A $35 million fiasco
The state shelled out $35 million to erect a three-story building on the Florida Atlantic University Jupiter campus.
The Stiles-Nicholson Brain Institute opened to fanfare in January. A foundation headed by David J.S. Nicholson gave FAU $10 million to help run innovative programs within it.
Yes, but: The building closed without fanfare over the weekend of July 29.
FAU officials didn't so much as distribute a press release to explain why it evacuated all the human and animal inhabitants and shut the building down. When asked, the university sent a vague statement, conceding that the building might be closed for six months.
It’s going to take more reporting to get to the bottom of this.
Joel teamed with FAU University Press Editor-in-Chief Jessica Abramsky to tell as much of the story as could be told at this stage. One memo provided to Abramsky revealed something went haywire with the building’s air-handling system.
In this day of smart buildings, we guess, this building wasn’t so smart. One employee complained of air pressure building up inside the building and forcing doors to close and stay closed, trapping people.
“Our current state is to relocate occupants (by 7/30/23) and then animals (ASAP) because the building pressurization is unstable and any condition which knocks the HVAC off line (fire alarm, power fluctuation, or otherwise) causes the potential for entrapment,” Wendy Ash Graves, the director of the FAU Office of Environmental Health and Safety, wrote to colleagues on July 29, a Saturday.
“In an abundance of caution, most of the occupants of the building have moved to alternate spaces,” the university’s Aug. 4 statement said. “Initial estimates suggest the project may take up to six months, but it is far too early to establish a firm time frame.”
Read the rest of the story, here.
🚔 Why a $7 million verdict is extra bad news for Lake Worth
After more than a decade of litigation, former Lake Worth Beach police officer Joseph Viera this month convinced a jury to order the city to pay him $7.1 million for cheating him out of benefits he deserved after being seriously injured while chasing a suspect in May 2000.
Why it matters: While city officials vowed to appeal the eye-popping verdict, if they lose, Viera’s win could cost Lake Worth Beach taxpayers dearly, Stet contributor Jane Musgrave writes.
The city has no insurance to cover the cost of the verdict, said attorney Daniel Lustig, who represented Viera in the successful legal battle.
That means taxpayers will be on the hook for the award, which is about 16% of the city’s $44 million proposed general fund budget.
City Manager Carmen Davis didn’t return several phone calls for comment on the possible impact of the verdict.
Viera, 57, who now lives in Colorado, said he has spent the last 23 years in an endless cycle of doctor’s visits and surgeries.
Seven months after he injured his back when he fell off a wall while chasing a suspect, his cruiser was struck by a car while he was on his way to investigate reports of a fight. Dozens of operations followed, he said.
Read Jane’s complete report on the verdict here.
👀 The juice
Fresh-squeezed news from all over
😎 Ask a local. Former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach did not sell for $422 million on Aug. 4, despite recent media reports based on an erroneous “sold” listing that appeared on the real estate website Zillow. (Palm Beach Daily News)
🌐 Florida ethics commission chair quits after conflict of interest exposed. (Broward Bulldog)
💵 The second storm season sales tax holiday is on through Sept. 8. Here’s the list of tax-free supplies. (Department of Revenue)
🌀 Quiz: Name that cane
As we track Hurricane Idalia’s forecast, we are reminded of the multiple perils a storm presents.
Wind speed is how most of us think of a hurricane’s dangers, but wind speed is only one piece of a storm’s threat. It doesn’t take into account storm surge, for instance, or tornado formation.
To gauge a windstorm’s true intensity, scientists sometimes use barometric pressure, the weight of air. The lower the pressure, the more intense the storm.
We know we join Stetters in sending good wishes to our fellow Floridians in the path of the storm.
🧱 561 insider: Island news
It has taken months of back-and-forth, but Mar-a-Lago is on track for an expansion.
Make that a mini-expansion: A 250-square-foot guardhouse for the Secret Service.
Why the extra protection after Donald Trump is out of office? Trump changed his personal residence to Palm Beach in 2021. Lifetime Secret Service protection follows a former president to his home.
A Mar-a-Lago tweak is no simple request. First, Palm Beachers already complained about traffic jams near the club. In May, Town Council President Pro Tem Bobbie Lindsay cited “considerable” complaints from residents in the south end who couldn’t get through to have dinner in town.
Plus: Mar-a-Lago modifications are determined by a 1995 preservation easement and no change is too small for the National Trust for Historic Preservation. That ranges from driveway curbs to whether the guardhouse would impede views from a dining hall window.
But the trust has given its preliminary blessing, and the traffic issues are larger than just Mar-a-Lago, said attorney Harvey Oyer, who represented the property in successfully seeking Town Council approval for the structure.
Besides, he said, it’s the Secret Service that wanted the guardhouse location at Mar-A-Lago’s South Ocean Boulevard entrance.
What’s next: Formal approval by the National Trust.
🫡 Keep an eye on the sky around 3 p.m. today, and you might catch the Goodyear Blimp as it flies over West Palm Beach on its way to its base in Pompano Beach. (Boca Magazine)
👨🏻💻 Joel would love to hear from people who attended classes or worked in labs at the Stiles-Nicholson Brain Institute in Jupiter. Write to Joel@ongardens.org
Thank you to our paid and free subscribers. Please help us grow by sharing this newsletter.
Do you have a story idea or a news tip? Reply to this email or write to stetmediagroup@gmail.com, and tell us.