Stet News☘️ Top of the morning, lads and lassies! For you today, a game-changing project pitched for Singer Island, a statehouse candidate who might need to move, big voter turnout in Juno Beach, where the votes were in Palm Beach Gardens and reading, but make it fun.
🆕 The newest big thing proposed for Singer Island
A New York-based developer is proposing a sweeping 28-story luxury condominium on Singer Island at the eastern edge of the Blue Heron Boulevard Bridge.
Driving the news: Representatives of The Continuum Co. filed site plans last month with Riviera Beach for a building called Singer Island Gateway to contain 298 residences and a restaurant and stores on the Intracoastal Waterway west of 2525 Lake Drive.
Miami-based Arquitectonia designed the project. It will include a 25,000-square-foot public open space along Blue Heron Boulevard and a marina, to push the building farther from the internationally renowned Phil Foster Park dive site.
Why it matters: The scale of the project on about 3 acres would dramatically change the low-rise neighborhood on the west side of the barrier island, just feet from Riviera Beach’s boundary with tiny Palm Beach Shores. It would also provide a significant boost to the city’s budget with property taxes and developer impact fees.
Zoom in: City and property records show the developer purchased six parcels south of Blue Heron and west of Lake Drive in 2019 and 2021 for $20.3 million.
What they’re saying: Susan Melamud, a Riviera Beach resident, spoke out against Singer Island Gateway at the March 4 City Council meeting.
- She said she is concerned about potential damage to the popular snorkeling and diving reef around the bridge and excessive traffic from hundreds of new residents.
- The building’s shadow over the Intracoastal Waterway would harm the wildlife that gathers there and draws tourists from around the world to dive nearby, she said.
- “The impact will be irreversible,” she said. “The casting of shadows from a high-rise building cannot be mitigated.”
The other side: “Construction of some kind is bound to happen there,” Riviera Beach resident JB Dixson wrote on Nextdoor this month. “Some people, I guess, miss the ratty old Days Inn where the Ritz-Carlton now stands and the ‘hot sheets’ motel and dive bar that I remember where the Amrit now stands. The good old days.”
Continuum, led by Ian Bruce Eichner, has created a website about the project called 2525lakedrive.com.
What’s next: The proposal is undergoing city staff review and would require approval by the Planning and Zoning Board, the Community Redevelopment Agency and the City Council.
Keep reading to learn about Continuum’s other high-density projects around the country at StetNews.org.
— Carolyn DiPaolo
🔥 State House race heats up
The Donald Trump-backed candidate for state House in the special election to replace Mike Caruso doesn’t live in the district.
Republican Jon Maples told Stet News he bought a home in Abacoa, which is in the district, but he registered instead with the address of an apartment in Palm Beach Shores, which also is in the district. County property records show no evidence that he bought a home or sold the one he has lived in since 2017 in Lake Clarke Shores.
- Maples is opposed by Democrat Emily Gregory, who lives in Abacoa.
- Winning candidates assume office immediately, meaning they must live in their district by election day.
Why it matters: Residency requirements can be used by political opponents to trip up opponents. They led to the resignation of House Democrat Daisy Baez in 2017 and haunted Rep. Michael David Redondo.
The election for state House District 87encompasses a wide swath of coastal Palm Beach County, from Hypoluxo to Juno Beach. It includes large chunks of Jupiter and Palm Beach Gardens, pieces of West Palm Beach and Lake Worth Beach and all of Singer Island and Palm Beach, including the president’s home at Mar-a-Lago.
Election day is March 24 but early voting began Saturday and continues until Sunday at three locations: the Supervisor of Elections Office on Cherry Road in Westgate, the Palm Beach Gardens Branch Library and the FAU Jupiter campus.
Of note: Nearly 42% of the 116,000 registered voters in the district are Republican, 28% Democratic and 26% unaffiliated.
The candidates:
- Gregory, 40, grew up in Stuart. She runs FIT4MOM Palm Beach, offering fitness programs for mothers-to-be and moms after delivery. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., and a master’s in public health from Columbia University in New York City.
- Maples, 43, grew up in Panama City. He is a financial planner with Northwestern Mutual in Palm Beach Gardens and a graduate of Palm Beach Atlantic University. He served since 2024 on the Lake Clarke Shores Town Council.
Read more about the candidates at StetNews.org.
Another take: Politico’s coverage of the state House District 87 race.
— Joel Engelhardt
🌊 Day of the attack ads
The tiny seaside town of Juno Beach has been a war zone for more than a year, with rival factions attacking each other online and in nasty email missives.
Residents flocking to the polls last week seemed to agree they’d had enough.
In a rare show of unity, town voters overwhelmingly elected three political newcomers who promised to return civility to the government and protect town residents from overdevelopment. Turnout reached 42%.
The winners all with about 65% of the vote:
- Mayor: Retired FPL engineer Dave Santilli over onetime Town Council member Elaine Cotronakis.
- Seat 1: Nuclear power contractor Scott Shaw over incumbent Marianne Hosta.
- Seat 3: Tech entrepreneur Max Fraser over retired FBI agent Eddie Gottschalk.
Of note: The three on the losing side were endorsed by outgoing Mayor Peggy Wheeler and Council Member John Callaghan.
Zoom in: Less than a month before election day, Wheeler, Callaghan and Hosta formed a majority to change the town’s so-called harmony code.
- That angered voters still upset over Caretta, a five-story, 95-unit condominium under construction at U.S. 1 and Donald Ross Road. It is viewed as a poster child for unchecked development.
An unrelenting flood of mailers from political committees and anonymous online posts that featured ugly attacks on the candidates flared during the week leading up to the March 10 election.
- The 81-year-old Hosta, for instance, was vilified for her 2024 arrest on battery charges after grabbing a phone from the then-mayor’s wife during a campaign forum.
- Her opponent, 69-year-old Shaw, was attacked for suing the town for not enforcing the harmony code.
What they’re saying: “It was the culmination that reached a tipping point,” Council Member DD Halpern said. “People felt that this group of three (new elected officials) were the ones that would protect their vision of Juno having a small-town feel. They didn’t have the confidence that the other three were protectors.”
Read more about the election that gripped a small town at StetNews.org.
— Jane Musgrave
📩 Vote-by-mail carried Gardens winners
Palm Beach Gardens residents returned incumbent Dana Middleton to the City Council as well as former Council Member Rachelle Litt, who ran after a three-year respite caused by term limits.
Newcomer Damien Murray got 50 more votes at the polls than Middleton but lost the vote-by-mail tally by nearly 1,000. He fell 57% to 43% to Middleton, facing her first election after winning her seat three years ago without opposition.
Likewise Litt and her closest challenger, Heather Deitchman, were separated by just 15 votes on election day but Litt topped Deitchman and third candidate David Levy by more than 800 votes each in vote-by-mail ballots.
Zoom in: Both winners dominated in the vote-rich environments of three key gated communities: Frenchman’s Creek, Mirasol and BallenIsles.
- Litt and Middleton also drew substantial support west of Military Trail at precincts voting at the city’s Sandhill Crane Golf Club, the county’s Solid Waste Authority building and Watson B. Duncan Middle School.
Deitchman and Murray nearly matched the winners at precincts voting at Gardens City Hall and won outright at Palm Beach Gardens Elementary, Gardens High and Allamanda Elementary School, all areas close to Plant Drive Park, which ignited opposition when the city turned the park over to a nonprofit to build an ice-rink complex.
Of note: In direct contributions, Litt raised the most money at $72,945. Levy raised $25,677 and Deitchman had $7,530.
- In the Group 5 race, Middleton outraised Murray by $44,405 to $17,450.
- Voter turnout in both races came in just under 15% of the city’s 45,196 registered voters.
Other races
In West Palm Beach, incumbents Cathleen Ward and Christy Fox rolled, with Ward grabbing 77% of the vote to defeat Martina Tate-Walker and Fox getting 67% against Roger Jackson III. Turnout fell below 10% in each race.
In Lake Park, Mayor Roger Michaud delivered a convincing victory over Ralph Moscoso, scoring 73% of the vote and winning all four of the town’s precincts. In one precinct with 268 registered voters, just five showed up (Michaud won 3-2). Overall turnout was 15.2%.
In Lake Worth Beach, covered by Lake Worth Beach Independent’s Joe Capozzi, voters rejected key amendments to ease rules for leasing city property, with Questions 2 and 3 going down with more than three-quarters of the 3,300 voters opposed. A question of whether to remove references to police and fire departments in the city charter went to a manual recount before failing by two votes. About 23% of city voters turned out.
North Palm Beach still has a special election March 24 to replace the late Kristin Garrison on the Village Council.
See all election results at the Supervisor of Elections Office website.
— Joel Engelhardt
🍊 The Juice
📆 The Florida Legislature ended its 2026 session Friday without a budget or a property tax proposal for voters to consider. What the House and Senate passed. (WUSF)
- The Florida House blocked state Senate efforts to clean up a 2025 bill, SB 180, that hamstrings local governments’ attempts to make changes in growth management laws. (Seeking Rents)
🛑 The $700 million C-11 water impoundment project in Broward County, a long-planned and congressionally approved piece of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, has been canceled by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the corps said in asking a judge to dismiss a federal lawsuit challenging the project. (Sun-Sentinel $$$)
🚜 A Miami-based developer has proposed a 24-story, 88-unit condominium tower with a private club and new retail space at 635 S. Dixie Highway, between Iris and Hibiscus streets, in West Palm Beach. (South Florida Business Journal $$$)
🏸 A family-focused private racket club is under construction on Kirk Road in Palm Springs. One of the partners is West Palm Beach-based NDT, the developer of Nora. The Court Club is expected to open in 2026 or early 2027. (The Palm Beach Post $$$)
📰 Boca Raton’s mayoral race made national headlines after Andy Thomson won in a recount by five votes. (The Coastal Star, Newsweek, Boca Magazine analysis)
🇨🇺 Cubans living in the United States will be able to invest and own private businesses on the island, the country’s deputy prime minister said Monday. (Miami Herald $$$)
🔭 More details of the planned African American Museum and Research Library are coming into focus. The Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties has released an updated design for a 20,000-square-foot, two-story building, which is part of the revitalization of West Palm Beach’s Coleman Park neighborhood and its surroundings. (Release)
🎙️ In “Top of Mind Florida,” podcasters Michael Williams and Brian Crowley discuss the recently completed Florida legislative session, going over what was — and wasn’t — accomplished. Plus, the future of Gov. Ron DeSantis. (Listen now; watch here starting at 4 pm today)
🤩 3 ways the library is making reading fun
The news last year that reading for pleasure is in freefall has inspired county library leaders to urge patrons to devote more time in 2026 to the pastime.
Driving the news: In January, the library system introduced “Rediscover Reading” programs and activities organized under monthly themes including “Poetry & Prose” (April) and “Stars, Stripes and Stories” (July).
Here are three ways the library is encouraging reading for fun.
1. Writers Live invites readers to meet prominent authors.
- Coming this week: Local historian and former Palm Beach Post journalist Eliot Kleinberg at 2 pm Wednesday at the Hagen Ranch Road branch. Registration is required.
- At 2 pm Thursday, meet Nick Petrie, New York Times bestselling author of the Peter Ash series, who will discuss “The Dark Time.” The talk at the Wellington branch is moderated by Oline Cogdill. Registration is required.
2. Book Club in a Bag: A book club can make reading social, and it can be a lot of work.
- To make it easier, the library system created Book Club in a Bag, a kit that comes with 10 copies of the book, discussion guides and questions to help get the conversation started.
- There are nearly 350 kits in a wide variety of genres, including a collection of classic novels.
3. The bookmobile: The newest bookmobile is a 36-foot masterpiece built on a Ford F-600 truck base. Inside are bookshelves and a desk where librarian Ron Glass helps visitors check out materials.
- At the ribbon cutting, library system Director Douglas Crane said, “This isn’t just a vehicle; it’s a modern, mobile hub for connecting communities, bringing the magic of the library to every corner of our county.”
- The bookmobile can make up to 42 stops over two weeks. “The people who use the bookmobile really love it because they get to know the staff very well, and they can get a lot more customized service,” Crane said.
Keep reading to find out about the monthly themes for the year of Rediscovering Reading at StetNews.org.
❤️ A concert to celebrate the legacy of Lake Worth Beach resident Ginny Meredith and benefit Inspirit, the nonprofit she founded to bring music to nursing homes, children’s centers and hospitals, will be March 29 from 2 to 8 pm at the Bamboo Room, 25 S. J St., in downtown Lake Worth Beach. Nine musical acts will perform.
- Attendees are asked to make a donation of $35 in advance or $45 at the door. Tickets are available here.
Read more about Meredith and her legacy at the Lake Worth Beach Independent.
