Joel EngelhardtSafe Harbor Rybovich wins over neighbors, gets Riviera Beach City Council OK for expansion.
It’s clear sailing for the Safe Harbor Rybovich superyacht repair yard in Riviera Beach.
Months after the city rejected the marina giant’s rezoning, Safe Harbor won approval last week for a “significantly reduced project.”
- Neighbors, once stridently opposed, embraced the plan.
Why it matters: Marinas, yachts and repair yards are big business in Palm Beach County, particularly along the deep-water waterfront east of Broadway. But they’re industrial, making it hard to live next door.
- Safe Harbor, owned by Dallas-based Sun Communities, paid $369 million for Rybovich’s century-old boatyard on North Flagler Drive in West Palm Beach and the Riviera yard in late 2020.
- The company, billed as the world’s largest marina owner and operator, paid $9 million last year for a former bank building west of its property on Broadway, converting it to offices.
A petition submitted by neighbors triggered a requirement last year that Safe Harbor’s rezoning proposal obtain a council supermajority. It needed four votes but got just two.
- This time the changes passed unanimously.
Of note: Council Member Tradrick McCoy, who voted against Safe Harbor in September, suggested dropping the supermajority provision tied to petitions but he couldn’t get another council member to second his motion.
What they’re saying: “They realized they weren’t going to get everything they wanted,” said Brandy Davis-Balsamo, president of the Lakeview Area Neighborhood Association.
Also of note: Safe Harbor and Davis-Balsamo praised the intervention of Council Member Glen Spiritis, who helped both sides put aside differences and forge an acceptable plan.
- The project stops at East 22nd Street rather than the boundary closest to Lakeview Park at East 22nd Court. Instead of a trash compactor and fuel tanks, neighbors will border a vacant, landscaped strip.
- Safe Harbor would advocate that the city spend the $1.7 million generated by the deal, mainly from the abandonment of a roadway, on neighborhood improvements. Residents have long complained of crumbling seawalls, poor drainage and pothole-laced streets.
- A 15,000-square-foot building would bring many boatyard operations indoors, consolidating outdoor work areas and reducing noise.
What’s next? With council approvals on second reading, Safe Harbor expects the work to be done in a year.
Joel is a founder, reporter and editor at Stet News. His award-winning newspaper career spanned more than 40 years, including 28 years at The Palm Beach Post, which he left in 2020. Joel lives with his wife in Palm Beach Gardens. He volunteers on the board of NAMI Palm Beach County and the Palm Beach Gardens Historical Society.
