Joel Engelhardt
Hotel tourist tax money built the Palm Beach County Convention Center. It helped build two baseball stadiums primarily used for one month a year. It helps keep the beaches sandy.
Could there be some dollars left for auto racing?
- County commissioners on Thursday were told they would lose an $81 million lawsuit if they rejected a 2 million-square-foot warehouse complex at the shuttered Palm Beach International Raceway. They approved the warehouses.
“This is not a stop sign. This is just a yield sign,” Commissioner Maria Sachs said.
Yes, but: Commissioners Sachs, Maria Marino and Sara Baxter were so impressed by the stories of family togetherness and moral upbringing shared by racers of all ages and ethnicities at meeting after meeting that maybe, just maybe, they said, there’s something worth saving here.
Why we care: People would come not just from South Florida but from all over the world to engage in events that last far longer than one month a year. That means Indy cars, stock cars and street cars souped up on the weekends for a test run.
Where to put them?
- Racing is loud. The site would have to be far from subdivisions, as was PBIR, the former Moroso Motorsports Park out on the Beeline Highway west of Jupiter.
- They’ll need a lot of space, perhaps more than is available at one county-owned site at Southern Boulevard and 20-Mile Bend. A quarter-mile drag strip needs more than a half-mile straightaway. PBIR also had a 2.2-mile road course. And at one point a go-kart track.
Commissioners said they would look for a private-sector partner to foot the bill. They didn’t mention the bed tax, which brought in $77 million last year.
Racing fans said they’ll be ready to help. And watching closely.
Joel offers more on the legal logjam that forced commissioners to approve the warehouses at OnGardens.org.
