Stet NewsWelcome to our last newsletter of 2024. For you today, Tampa General Hospital expands its footprint, an ice rink is prevailing over a skateboard park, Palm Beach-Lake Worth battle over dump trucks on the beach and SunFest tries for a management role.
🏥 Exclusive: Tampa General’s next stop — Belle Glade
Tampa General Hospital is a nonprofit giant making significant inroads in Palm Beach County.
- It has 20 physician groups with 70 doctors here.
- It recently announced plans to offer a cancer center with Mass General Brigham in Palm Beach Gardens.
- Its CEO, John Couris, used to run Jupiter Medical Center.
Now Tampa General is partnering with the Palm Beach County Health Care District to help run the district’s Belle Glade hospital, Lakeside Medical Center.
The district board approved a five-year deal with Tampa General, a 981-bed hospital and academic health system based since 1927 on Hillsborough Bay in Tampa.
The district said it expected Tampa General to “provide administrative leadership, operational and strategic support and deep expertise to enhance the delivery and outcomes of Lakeside Medical Center.”
The 70-bed Lakeside hospital is underused.
- Its average daily census for November was 10.7 beds, the health district said.
- In 2023, it had 416 patient admissions and 18,882 emergency room visits.
- The district put up $27 million to subsidize Lakeside’s operations in 2023.
For its agreement with Tampa General, the district set aside $600,000 to cover the first phase costs, including hiring a vice president of hospital administration to work under Tampa General’s oversight.
What they’re saying: “This is really exciting. The creativity, the innovation, the stuff that they can bring to the table for an area that has been long neglected in this county,” Health Care District Commissioner Patrick Rooney Jr. said. “This is really something special.”
For the rest of the story, please click here.
— Joel Engelhardt
🏒 Smooth ice
Despite opposition, plans for a $40 million ice rink in Palm Beach Gardens won unanimous support last week from a city advisory body.
- Next stop is a City Council vote next month.
The $40 million rink with two sheets of ice and a 154-seat restaurant would be built and operated by a nonprofit.
- It has the backing of hockey luminaries Wayne Gretzky, Denis Potvin, Pat LaFontaine, Bobby Orr and Mike Eruzione.
- It would be the only indoor ice rink in north county.
Yes, but. It would eliminate Plant Drive Park, the city’s oldest park and home to the only free skateboard park in north county.
That upset neighbors. They say their voices weren’t considered when the city agreed in April to a 40-year lease with the Palm Beach North Athletic Foundation.
They worry about traffic on two-lane residential streets already stressed during pickup and dropoff at neighboring Palm Beach Gardens High School.
They question the zoning designation and the community value of replacing a free recreation space with a paid facility controlled by a private entity.
Both sides agree on one thing: Their sports are great for the community. They promote sportsmanship and a sense of community.
Read more of the debate at StetNews.org by clicking here.
— Joel Engelhardt
🚫 A line in the sand
Lake Worth Beach voters changed the city charter to block sand transfers on its public beach in 2009. But the city neglected to record the change in the actual charter document.
That put the city in the unenviable position of violating its own charter when it agreed Dec. 3 to take $80,000 in exchange for letting Palm Beach transfer sand to the city beach before redistributing it along town beaches.
As ByJoeCapozzi.com reported, the deal came to a screeching halt last week after Cara Jennings, a city commissioner in 2009, wrote to remind the city that residents voted to ban the town from using Lake Worth’s beach as a staging area for the town’s dredge and fill projects.
What happened? The charter change came from voters in 2009. But the city never updated its charter to reflect the change, an apparent error by the city clerk.
No one at City Hall remembered it, even as they negotiated a deal with Palm Beach and brought it to the City Commission for approval.
But Jennings did.
The impact: Palm Beach trucks were supposed to start dumping sand on the south end of the city beach on Jan. 1, a project that would have lasted up to 45 days. But that’s not going to happen, Lake Worth Beach city attorneys said after the city received the former commissioner’s letter.
Yes, but. The saga isn’t over. Palm Beach is insisting on using the beach anyway.
Read Joe’s exclusive coverage of the sand snafu here.
Read more about Lake Worth Beach from Stet contributor Joe Capozzi:
- Lake Worth Beach considers shift to paid downtown parking by 2026
- Iguanas share blame for closing of Lake Worth High swimming pool
- $60 million museum-apartment project could be ‘crown jewel’ for downtown Lake Worth Beach
- An in-depth profile Arthur Wiener, the Brooklyn-born art-collecting developer who wants to build the museum-apartment project
— Reported by Joe Capozzi
🍊The Juice
A hit-and-run crash at Aero Club and South Club drives in Wellington killed Toshimi Abe-Janiga, Palm Beach County’s 2021 Teacher of the Year. Abe-Janiga, 62, was in the crosswalk outside the Lakefield community when a vehicle turning eastbound on South Club Drive struck her. She was a teacher at Riviera Beach Preparatory and Achievement Academy. The driver may now have been identified. (WLRN, WPEC Channel 12 and The Palm Beach Post)
🌲 The Christmas tree lot in Juno Beach sold to PulteGroup for $13 million, just three months after the Town Council approved the site for 40 townhomes. The seller, John Bills’ Juno Square LLP, paid $445,000 for the 4.7-acre site in 2006. (South Florida Business Journal $$$)
🦉 Trump’s transition business largely happens after night falls. At Mar-a-Lago, the president-elect has been hosting diplomatic dinners, announcing cabinet picks and firing off texts to his aides — all after the sun goes down. (The New York Timesgift link)
💰 Reporter Jason Garcia traces billionaire Ken Griffin’s campaign largesse, including $70,000 to new Palm Beach County School Board member Gloria Branch and $50,000 to Palm Beach County state attorney candidate Sam Stern. (Seeking Rents)
🎧 BONUS: Stet contributor Jane Musgrave appeared on WLRN public radio’s “South Florida Roundup” to discuss her coverage last week of failing health grades for three Palm Beach County hospitals. Listen here (around the 24-minute mark) or read a transcript here.
🎨 561NSIDER: SunFest could run Street Painting Festival
SunFest of Palm Beach County, the nonprofit that oversees the popular butstruggling downtown West Palm Beach music and arts festival, wants to operate the 2025 Lake Worth Beach Street Painting Festival, ByJoeCapozzi.com reports.
Why it matters: It would be a collaboration of the leadership of two beloved Palm Beach County gatherings.
A contract for SunFest to run the downtown chalk art festival in February for $271,000 will be considered tonight by Lake Worth Beach city commissioners.
To be clear: SunFest is not moving to Lake Worth Beach. SunFest officials have offered no update since their vague November announcement that the 2025 event would not be held in May along the downtown West Palm waterfront for the first time since the inaugural event in 1983.
Under the plan Lake Worth Beach will consider, SunFest’s staff and volunteers would help the city put on the Street Painting Festival, which is free and attracts thousands of visitors and artists from around the world.
Back story: The city took over the Street Painting Festival in 2021 after the nonprofit that had overseen the event since it began in 1995 voluntarily dissolved. The festival has been a challenge for the city’s small staff, prompting leaders to seek help for the next chalk art festival, set for Feb. 22-23.
In its pitch to the city, SunFest noted that it has produced a variety of events beyond its signature festival. They include: Bright Nights, a 21-day holiday light show produced with Roger Dean Stadium in 2009; MoonFest in 2003; Taste of CityPlace in 2015; and Sabor Y Vino from 2017 to 2019 in Downtown at the Gardens.
Read Joe Capozzi’s full story here.
Read SunFest’s proposal to run the Street Painting Festival here.
– Reported by Joe Capozzi
👋🏼 And that’s a wrap of Stet News coverage for 2024. Look for our next newsletter on Jan. 7. In the meantime, we’ll check in with our year-end review and a preview of Stet’s plans to better serve you and your neighbors in the months ahead.
🕯️All of us at Stet send you wishes for happiness and health in this season of light.
