Stet NewsWelcome back and happy golf-free state park to you. Golfers may be out but a bike path is in and a coffee house with kitchen appeal.
🚫 Blitz crushes golf plan
It’s rare to draw as much outrage and condemnation in just a few days as drawn by the state’s light-on-details plan to build two-and-a-half golf courses at Jonathan Dickinson State Park in southern Martin County.
The cacophony came from all sides and it came so fast and hard that before the state could convene a meeting planned for today at a wedding venue in Stuart, the proposal had been withdrawn.
- Proposals for changes at eight other state parks remain and environmentalists plan press conferences throughout the week, including one at 2 pm today at Flagler Park in Stuart.
Getting the word out started with a leaked page of the plan confirmed by Max Chesnes, a former Treasure Coast Newspapers reporter now reporting for the Tampa Bay Times.
Why it’s important: The outcry fed by media coverage and social media forced the state to delay today’s meeting and brought new demands to assure that Dickinson is preserved in perpetuity.
- But reporters could only speculate on what group had enough political clout to get the governor’s office to resurrect a 2011 proposal to convert 10 percent of the 10,000-acre park to fairways and greens.
That mystery ended Friday night when WPBF Channel 25’s longtime investigative reporter Terri Parker broke the story wide open.
Parker got state Sen. Gayle Harrell, R-Stuart, to describe a meeting last year with the veterans charity Folds of Honor, in which she was asked to sponsor a bill to allow three golf courses in the park. An unidentified Florida Department of Environmental Protection worker confirmed the charity’s involvement.
- Chesnes followed the next day with his own story, also tracking the idea to Folds of Honor.
On Sunday, Folds of Honor withdrew, according to DEP, an agency that had not previously acknowledged the charity’s role.
Yes, but with another twist. Folds of Honor planned to use the course to memorialize the famed Tuskegee Airmen, a group of Black U.S. military pilots during World War II.
An unanswered question: Did golf great Jack Nicklaus, who was involved in the 2011 effort, play a role?
Folds of Honor founder and CEO, Lt. Col. Dan Rooney, credited Nicklaus with helping the charity save his family-owned golf course in Michigan, now called American Dunes.
Nicklaus redesigned the course, which raises money for the charity, and waived $3 million in fees, the 2021 edition of the group’s magazine, Honor, said.
What they’re saying: “I want people here to play, have fun, (and) say, ‘I had a great day,’ but I also contributed to a great cause,” Nicklaus told the magazine. “That’s sort of what this golf course is. I think it’s going to serve its purpose.”
Read more: How Palm Beach County commissioners reacted.
— Joel Engelhardt
🚴♀️ Safe passage to downtown
After more than 20 years, $2.5 million and 148 newly planted trees, West Palm Beach opened a bicycle and walking trail along Clear Lake from Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard to downtown.
Why it’s important: The 1.5-mile Clear Lake Trail promises cyclists and pedestrians an alternative to driving and a shortcut to downtown along a scenic and safe route.
What they’re saying: “It’s also a wonderful recreational trail, allowing individuals and families all around the city to get outside, walk, bike and commune with nature,” Mayor Keith James announced at the Aug. 17 ribbon-cutting ceremony.
The city cobbled together a patchwork of grants to make it happen:
- $1.38 million from the Florida Department of Transportation.
- $600,000 from the federal Community Development Block Grant program.
- $499,000 and $41,812 in separate city contributions.
- $75,000 from the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to plant trees.
The trees are expected to help the city meet its greenhouse gas reduction target of net zero by 2050, said Penni Redford, the city’s climate change and resilience manager.
“It is a way to help us reduce our greenhouse gas emissions from climate change because it’s getting people out of their cars and biking and walking, being more healthy,” Redford said.
The city selected native plants to line the trail to assure their roots and droppings don’t interfere with the water system. The city’s drinking water supply collects in Clear Lake before feeding into the nearby water treatment plant.
What they planted:
- 36 live oak
- 20 East Palatka holly
- 25 wild tamarind
- 23 mahogany
- 26 gumbo limbo
- 18 green buttonwood
The project pleased Ross Harness, president of the nonprofit advocacy group Connect West Palm Beach.
“This trail is a tangible example of what a safe, off-street protected trail can look like, setting a standard that we hope to replicate in other parts of the city,” Harness told Stet News in an email.
Yes, but: Joe Minicozzi, who served as the city’s urban designer from March 1998 to February 2003 and runs Urban 3 in Asheville, N.C., recalls plans for the path as part of a more extensive urban trail network reaching as far west as the Grassy Waters Preserve west of Florida’s Turnpike.
“So I guess a trail around a couple lakes is a ‘win,’ but it could have been so, so much bigger,” Minicozzi told Stet News. “It’s pretty hard for me to celebrate it.”
Read more of the story here.
— Mary Rasura
🍊 The juice
(State Archives of Florida/O.D. Huff Jr. Groves)
🏗 Oculina, the 25-story twin towers with 399 residences proposed for Silver Beach Road and Broadway, won a key first vote Wednesday by a 4-1 margin at the Riviera Beach City Council, with Council Member Shirley Lanier opposed. The plan to change the land use of the former Winn-Dixie grocery store must undergo state review before returning for final consideration. (Stet News broke the story about Oculina in November.)
🥊 In what promises to be a slugfest, Sheriff Ric Bradshaw, a Democrat, is running in November against his former chief deputy, Mike Gauger. Bradshaw defeated Alex Freeman by a 61-39 margin, the same margin he scored over Freeman four years ago. In 2016, Bradshaw scored 66 percent of the vote in defeating Freeman and two others. In 2012, the long-serving sheriff won 78 percent in the primary. Gauger, making his first run, topped Lauro Diaz with 54 percent of the vote.
🤝In case you missed it: After a personal appeal from billionaire downtown developer Stephen Ross, the Palm Beach County Commission greenlighted staff to begin working on a gift of 5 acres of downtown land to bring a Vanderbilt University graduate business school to “Government Hill.” West Palm Beach supported a gift of 2 acres the night before. (Stet News)
🔪 561NSIDER: Kitchen collective
Chef hopefuls will have brand new commercial kitchens to rent in Lake Park this winter, a sort of co-op of commercial kitchens, under a plan from Oceana Coffee Roasters.
Owners Amy and Scott Angelo are preparing to open the Culinary Studio on the second floor of their still-under-construction building on 10th Street in Lake Park.
Why it’s important: The Culinary Studio will offer commercially equipped kitchens that rent by the hour to culinary upstarts or caterers who need affordable work space. The target audience for club membership will be mom and pops who only operate for brief spurts and don’t need a full restaurant or giant, and costly, commercial setup.
- A rental event space is part of it so pop-ups and wine dinners, catered parties or chef demos can be arranged.
What they’re saying: There’s nowhere like it in the county, says Amy Angelo, Oceana’s co-owner. She and husband, Scott, could have used one when they started their coffee roasting business that has outgrown two spots in Tequesta.
Their new Lake Park headquarters also will offer a drive-through and cannery.
Their $10 million building is under construction on 10th Street, a few blocks north of the 595-unit apartment building proposed for 10th Street and Park Avenue in downtown Lake Park.
Of note: Amy will host an open house to see layouts for kitchens and explain how participants must be club members from 10 am to 6 pm Friday at the Brooklyn Cupcake Co., 796 10th St., Lake Park. For more information, call 561-206-2443.
The rest of the story: Jan fills you in on Oceana’s plans for Lake Park here.
— Jan Norris
