🌴 Coming soon: Margaritaville hotel
🌴 Coming soon: Margaritaville hotel
Welcome back. For you: It could feel like 5 o'clock in more places in Riviera Beach; native lands at stake in Jupiter; developers have a new ace card to play; and local Barbies.
🚨 This just in: Late Monday, West Palm Beach commissioners unanimously voted to terminate negotiations with City Harbor for a marina on the downtown waterfront. Watch the meeting here.
🍹 Margaritaville hotel commits to Riviera Beach waterfront
Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville hotel chain is poised to cap off a dramatic rebuild of the Riviera Beach Marina Village with a 150-room waterfront hotel.
Why it matters: It’s part of a yearslong effort culminating June 28 when the city’s master developer told council members that Margaritaville’s Compass brand hotel is coming.
“We're not just saying ‘Hey this is our idea,’” developer Vaughn Irons told the council. “They have committed to bringing this hotel to the property. … We’ve shared with your staff proof of that commitment.”
It would put the hotel next to the Margaritaville at Sea cruise ship that makes two-day runs to the Bahamas from the Port of Palm Beach.
But that’s not all: The hotel would be a part of a larger $350 million Phase 2 project to boost the marina that once housed the popular Tiki Waterfront Sea Grill and draws throngs of boaters and weekend Peanut Island revelers.
Builder Jorge Perez’s Related Group has committed to a 400-unit market-based apartment building on the site. Related is partnering with BH Group, which recently bought the Office Depot headquarters in Boca Raton.
A second site has been set aside for 138 units geared to low-income renters.
Restaurant Row: Plans also call for 16,000 square feet of waterfront restaurants and shops and three parking garages.
No decision has been made on a parcel once considered for an aquarium.
APD-Tezral, a joint venture combining Tony Brown of West Palm Beach and Vaughn Irons of Atlanta, won the Riviera Beach Community Redevelopment Agency contract to lead the development in October 2019. Brown has been involved in waterfront projects in Riviera Beach for decades and once headed the CRA.
The global real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle or JLL is handling negotiations. Financing has been pledged by Los Angeles-based Sonnenblick Development.
What’s next? The developers have been updating the CRA monthly. The next meeting is July 26.
🪧 Jupiter opens door to development on Native American site
Tempers flared Thursday at Jupiter Town Hall. Expect them to flare again tonight when the Town Council resumes a tense debate over the future of land with deep roots to Jupiter’s earliest inhabitants.
At stake: a 10-acre waterfront tract historically known as the Sperry Property and Suni Sands. It contains an ancient Indian midden, the path of the old Celestial Railway and the site of the first town center.
Local Native Americans say the land also holds the gravesites of their ancestors, who had been living on the land thousands of years before the first Europeans arrived.
Developer Charles Modica owns the land. He wants to build 67 condos, five townhouses, a restaurant and a 125-room boutique hotel. He promises to preserve about 4 acres, including the midden and railway path.
Yes, but: In February, the town’s Historic Resources Board voted to preserve all 10 acres, as reported by JoeCapozzi.com. Modica’s plans represent the first modern intense construction on the land and would cause irreparable damage to its hidden historic resources, the advisory board found.
Modica threatened to sue. He appealed the board’s ruling, which led to Thursday’s meeting. As Native Americans and preservationists yelled their disapproval — and dared police to remove them from Town Hall — council members voted 3-2 to overturn the HRB recommendation and allow construction on parts of the site.
“I cannot believe my colleagues are completely missing the point here,” said Vice Mayor Cheryl Schneider, who voted with Councilman Cameron May against.
“I am absolutely shocked. It has been known for such a long time the significance of this property, and then when it comes to finally being able to preserve it everybody is trying to not do that. By building on a part of it you dishonor all of it.”
Voting for it: Mayor Jim Kuretski, Ron Delaney and Malise Sundstrom.
“I don't see facts that I can support to preserve the whole site in its entirety from any development on it,’’ Kuretski said.
What’s next? The special meeting continues at 6 tonight. The council debates how much can be developed.
— Joe Capozzi
🂡 Golf course decision revisited as new state law erodes city’s power to just say no
In a sign of things to come, a developer has told the Riviera Beach City Council that if it doesn’t reconsider a proposal for 286 homes on a former golf course, the developer will simply take another route opened recently by the Florida Legislature: affordable housing.
Why it matters: The council voted 4-1 on June 21 against rezoning 64 acres of the Lone Pine Golf Course on North Military Trail for homes, a victory for neighbors. But the Live Local Act strips cities of control over some properties if affordable housing is built. Could developers use it to pressure elected officials to give in to what they want?
It is happening in Riviera Beach. The homebuilder, DR Horton, issued a good-cop, bad-cop ultimatum to the city through its representative, WGI.
Good cop: The builder “desires to have an opportunity to try to work with its neighbors and city (on a new proposal). … This may include a reconfiguration of the development plan and potentially a reduction in density.”
Bad cop: Although “it is not the desired course of action,” if denied reconsideration the builder would take advantage of the state’s Live Local Act, which strips cities of zoning control over affordable housing projects on commercial, industrial or mixed-use land.
“This would mean that the proposed development would be a for-rent development with 40 percent affordable housing units,” WGI wrote. And would be “significantly denser than the proposal previously presented.”
Yes, but: DR Horton will have to prove that the site’s recreation open space zoning qualifies for Live Local. The law says counties must allow multifamily and mixed-use residential in areas zoned for “commercial, industrial, or mixed use” if at least 40 percent of the residential units are set aside for 30 years as affordable. It’s on Page 12 of the statute, here. And Page 26 of the legislative analysis, here.
The council got the message. Members voted 3-2 to revisit the Lone Pine Golf Course decision at a later date.
The unwinding of Brandon Labiner, Part 2: A murder in a dark place
Even at midday, the lighted underground parking garage of Paul and Brandon Labiner’s Boca Raton law office has sections of shadow.
Surveillance footage still recorded the figure of a helmeted bicyclist entering the garage July 1.
He opens a box. He takes something out of it.
He paces for more than half an hour.
When Paul Labiner came down the short stairway into the garage entrance, camera footage shows the two men struggling.
It does not show who fired the shots that ended Paul’s life.
Hours later, police arrested Paul’s son, Brandon, and charged him with premeditated murder. He has pleaded not guilty.
For more than a year before the shooting, Paul had been at war with Brandon as theft and lies tore apart what had appeared to be a close relationship.
ICYMI: Read Part 2, The Unwinding of Brandon Labiner. And you can read Part 1, here.
🍒 The juice
Fresh-squeezed news from all over
🦷 How FAU’s coming dental school could be connected to the university’s disrupted presidential search. (City Watch)
🔎 The FBI acknowledges it’s investigating an apparent attempt to hijack a fifth flight on 9/11. Twelve of the 19 hijackers who commandeered the other planes lived or had connections in Palm Beach County. (Florida Bulldog)
⛴️ St. Petersburg is pursuing a marina revamp and Safe Harbor is a finalist. See what the company is proposing. (Tampa Bay Times)
🏅 Quiz Answer: All of the above!
Last week we asked: When the Florida Legislature signed off on laws this past session taking power from local governments, who were the likely winners: Developers? Fertilizer manufacturers? Landlords?
Answer: All of the above.
Step back: Eroding local control risks leaving people less able to influence local decisions affecting their lives.
That’s why Florida voters amended the state Constitution to give broad powers to local governments.
Who benefits from new laws?
🐠 Fertilizer manufacturers. State law now bans cities or counties from enacting new bans on fertilizer use in the summer.
Why it matters: Fertilizer runoff, especially during the rainy summer months, fuels toxic algae blooms and fish kills. Palm Beach County is among more than 100 local governments restricting its summertime use.
🏡 Developers and landlords: As Joel’s story today on Riviera Beach explains, the Live Local Act’s ambitious blueprint for affordable housing also curbs the ability of local governments to stop or restrict height and density on certain projects. It also bans local rent control.
Tenants get a break: Landlords must give 30 days’ notice prior to eviction. Instead of massive upfront security deposits, renters can pay a monthly fee.
Yes, but: The fees may not be refunded. And the 30-day notice is shorter than West Palm Beach’s 60-day rule involving rent hikes of 5 percent or more.
🎬 561 insider: Barbie is every woman, and every woman is Barbie
Barbenheimer isn’t the only Barbie-Big Science mashup.
Stet asked AI: What would a Palm Beach Barbie look like?
The short answer: Not Mattel.
The long answer: No, really, not Mattel.
For a look at FAU Barbie, Clematis by Night Barbie and more, click here.
☯️ Carolyn committed a Barbenheimer during the weekend and is reflecting on the doll and the physicist — the compelling, complex, contradictory nature of both.
But she’s confused by Palm Beach Ken.
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