🏢 Towering over Broadway
🏢 Towering over Broadway
For you today, a development scoop from Joel; changing times for a revered drug-addiction unit; a lost year for Tiger Woods' project; Pat's holiday quiz; and charcuterie to go.
Exclusive: Twin waterfront towers proposed for Broadway in Riviera Beach
The developer of the twin, 24-story Nautilus 220 condo towers at Silver Beach Road and Broadway in Lake Park is proposing a nearly identical project across the street at the Riviera Beach site of a long-shuttered Winn-Dixie store.
Forest Development’s twin 25-story towers called Oculina would be built at the tip of a strip center featuring a Goodwill thrift store and dd’s Discounts, which would remain. The 3.3-acre site overlooks the Intracoastal Waterway and the Lake Park Harbor Marina.
The plan:
399 condo units (Nautilus is 330 units)
A five-story, 841-space parking garage
16,550 square feet of restaurant space, 8,225 square feet of retail and 11,000 square feet of office.
More than $300 million in construction costs.
It benefits the city by “revitalizing a property that has been old, neglected and unused for over five years by maximizing and improving its use, and creating a northern anchor for the city of Riviera Beach and the community,” Forest Development Managing Partner Peter Baytarian said in an email.
Who is Peter Baytarian? Born in Beirut, Lebanon, Baytarian’s bio says he founded two companies to renovate and manage high-end residential and commercial properties in Manhattan. He also has built 150 homes in Cape Cod, Mass., and now lives in South Florida.
Once completed and sold out, Baytarian estimates Oculina would add $600 million to the Riviera Beach tax base. Condos at Nautilus have been selling from $1.6 million to $4 million-plus, the developer said.
Of note: Fortress Investment Group, the lead investor in Brightline, provided a $269 million construction loan for Nautilus.
While Nautilus is expected to open in fall 2024, Oculina is likely to be undergoing city reviews next spring or summer and is years from completion. At a meeting Monday, the developer met with residents of neighboring Riviera Shores, who expressed worries about the building’s massive scale, shadows cutting out the afternoon sun, traffic spillover and the size of a sidewalk buffer.
For wordsmiths: Oculina is the name of a type of coral.
🏥 An addiction unit that became a model is folded into the ER
The $1 million question: Will Palm Beach County pay JFK Hospital North for a program that drug recovery advocates say no longer exists?
Opened in early 2020 by the county, the Health Care District of Palm Beach County and the hospital, the 10-bed Addiction Stabilization Unit was heralded as a one-of-its-kind approach to helping drug users.
Gov. Ron DeSantis praised it. Florida’s Department of Health used it as the model for the state’s CORE initiative, now in use at multiple Florida hospitals.
And it has been quietly eased out of existence, said Maureen Kielian, who leads Southeast Florida Recovery Advocates.
“The mother ship is sunk,” she said.
The money question: The county pledged $1 million to help JFK North offset the cost of treating people on what was then a separate 10-bed unit.
The contract expired. It is up for renewal.
HCA, which owns JFK North, insisted to Stet Palm Beach, state officials and the county’s Health Care District that comprehensive addiction treatment is still being provided in the emergency room.
Treating patients there instead of in the original, separate 10-bed unit allows closer medical supervision, said a physician who has treated patients since the unit’s creation.
JFK North still provides care using six emergency room beds. The hospital’s ER care is well-regarded. A social worker and health care coordinator offer support.
But the support is primarily during office hours. And the Addiction Stabilization Unit was never just about emergency room care, which all hospitals can offer, said former Palm Beach County Commissioner Melissa McKinlay.
“We cut the ribbon on a 10-bed ASU,” she said. ”We did not cut the ribbon on an ER offering addiction services.”
How it is different: The Addiction Stabilization Unit did not only provide a way to safely detox drug-users seeking help. It offered 24/7 wraparound services for such things as medication-assisted treatment, support from peers who are in recovery and housing. Families got help, too.
Crucially, it could interrupt a lethal pattern. A person treated for an overdose in an ER and discharged to the street is at a higher risk of death.
It’s why county Fire Rescue crews were instructed to take patients to the unit at JFK North when possible, bypassing other, closer hospitals.
At stake: Local lives. In the first half of 2022, published state records showed the county led all other regions for deaths tied to heroin and morphine, a heroin byproduct.
Cocaine-related deaths were up by double digits. Deaths linked to the anti-anxiety drug clonazepam, which was not even tracked in 2019, were the highest in the state.
And xylazine, an animal tranquilizer often added to heroin, has begun seeping into local street sales. It killed 13 people in Palm Beach County in six months, state records show.
🗓️ Tiger Woods’ golf league delayed a year
Plans for an indoor golf league headed by greats Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy at Palm Beach State College’s Palm Beach Gardens campus were set back by a year after significant damage last week to the under-construction, air-inflated arena dome.
A power outage overnight Nov. 14 forced the parachute-like canopy to deflate just before high winds and rain ravaged the site.
By Thursday, the dome was in tatters, as reported Friday by Stet Palm Beach.
On Monday, TMRW Sports Group announced construction delays would push the TMRW Golf League past its Jan. 9 inaugural match, to have been broadcast on ESPN, forcing a one-year delay.
“This decision came after reviewing short-term solutions, potential construction timelines, player schedules, and the primetime sports television calendar,” the league said in a statement.
The statement did not reference the cost of a new canopy, which covers an area of roughly 3 acres and reaches a height of 75 feet. The work did not undergo city permitting and review because it’s on a state college campus.
Of note: TMRW Sports is headed by Woods, McIlroy and golf TV executive Mike McCarley. As a private enterprise, it has not publicly revealed construction costs but a state college construction report puts the estimated construction value at $11 million.
Yes, but: TMRW Sports made a $1 million donation to the Foundation for Palm Beach State College in February, when it broke ground on the site off PGA Boulevard at a ceremony featuring Woods, McIlroy and Gov. Ron DeSantis. The sports group pays the college no rent but committed to paid student internships, student training opportunities and international publicity in a five-year lease with two five-year options.
The college is incurring no costs due to the construction setback and scheduling delay, spokeswoman Angela Harrington said.
What’s next? The college’s five-member board of trustees holds its monthly meeting at 4 pm today on the Gardens campus off PGA Boulevard near the Gardens Mall.
🍒 The juice
Fresh-squeezed headlines
👋 Swift departure: North Palm Beach Village Council Member Darryl Aubrey, 89, drew shock and tears Nov. 15 when he announced he would resign his seat the next day. He didn’t plan to run again in March after 18 years on the council and had planned to leave in December but said he moved up his departure to ensure a replacement can be on board by January. The council is expected to consider a replacement on Dec. 14.
🚒 A $2.2 million bill for unpaid firefighting fees has ignited talk of litigation between Delray Beach and Highland Beach. (The Coastal Star)
👀 Prompted by complaints of condo associations gone rogue, Sen. Jennifer Bradley (R-Fleming Island) will introduce a bill to curb abuses. How many local condo owners have an interest in the outcome? Realtor.com recently listed 4,721 units for sale in Palm Beach County; Homes.com listed 2,764 for rent. (WLRN)
🍗 This list of 17 essential restaurants in Palm Beach County includes high-end classics (The Seafood Bar and Okeechobee Steakhouse) and quick service favorites (CR Chicks and Aioli). (Miami Eater)
🖌️ A teacher alleged to have posted an anti-semitic trope on social media and who emailed the Palm Beach County School superintendent asking the district to "publicly recognize the Palestinian community" has been placed on leave. (The Palm Beach Post $)
🥘 Catch up on the expansion and impact of The Lord’s Place. (Florida Weekly)
🥥 The culprit is coconut: Days ahead of Thanksgiving, Publix Super Markets is recalling batches of its egg custard pies sold in Palm Beach County between Oct. 20 and Nov. 16, as well as in Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe counties. The mixup: Coconut pies may have accidentally been put in custard pie-labeled packages. For those allergic to coconut, it’s more than a dessert disappointment. But anyone can take their pies back to stores for a refund. (Publix)
🦃 Quiz: Coming home to roost
Among the things to be thankful for this week is a 1978 “WKRP in Cincinnati” TV episode involving the season’s favorite fowl. Praised as one of the best sitcom episodes ever, it turned on a quirk of turkey nature.
🦈 Stet business: Shark-cuterie
Aaron and Julie Menitoff were riding high with a Wellington catering company that supplied elaborate feasts to the equestrian set when the pandemic put a fork in their business.
“It literally stopped everything,” Aaron said last year.
So they carved out a new enterprise that today ships lavish charcuterie boards nationwide from a 15,000-square-foot production center on President Barack Obama Highway south of Blue Heron Boulevard in Riviera Beach.
Positioned as an alternative to a traditional gift basket, the boards arrive ready to serve.
What happened: In November 2022, Boarderie won a deal on “Shark Tank” that has helped fuel their booming venture.
Co-founder Rachel Solomon, a financial analyst, joined Aaron for the pitch. She was a customer.
“I believed in him since the minute I met him,” she told the Sharks last year.
The amazing stats: Before “Shark Tank,” Boarderie had $3.3 million in sales. Since then, Boarderie has done more than $20 million in sales, Solomon told Stet Palm Beach.
Before “Shark Tank:” 15 full-time employees. Today: about 80 full-time employees.
Flash forward: Mentiloff and Solomon appeared on last week’s “Shark Tank” episode to update their progress.
The report included footage of the 769-pound charcuterie board they created last month in Palm Beach to qualify for a Guinness World Record.
The ingredients went to The Lord’s Place.
What’s next: Boarderie is on track to double its production space next year. Look for the company to expand into dessert boards and vegan and gluten-free offerings.
Solomon noted it takes time to develop a board because the ingredients must travel well and look beautiful. Boarderie’s first product took about a year to perfect, she said.
Meanwhile, it’s a crunch week for their team. About 7,000 fresh-made boards were prepped and shipped Monday.
🛒 Stet Sports: The Miami Dolphins roll into their Black Friday game — yes, the NFL is making a Black Friday play — after continuing their winning ways against weak teams. On Sunday, that meant the Dolphins handed the Las Vegas Raiders a loss. Sorry, New York Jets fans, but your team is at the table on Black Friday.
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