Project Tango grows: County staff grants administrative approval to larger data center
PBA Holdings’ 200,000 square feet of data center space would grow to nearly 700,000 square feet under approval granted Oct. 7.…
Mayor blames administrator but Ethics Commission won’t drop case
‘That’s what this case really turns on … bad optics,’ Mayor Keith James’ lawyer argued. ‘There’s not a scintilla of evidence … that suggest that that friendship … translated to any corrupt purpose.’…
Exclusive: Security contractor Willie Perez in his own words
‘Part of my structure, of what I do and how I do it, is the ability to be able to understand the politics and the requirements in a city that wants security.’…
Exclusive: Documents shed new light on 3-year ethics probe into WPB Mayor Keith James
Former city administrator says in deposition he took the fall to ensure mayor’s benefactor kept no-bid security contract…
Get out of your car
An effort to ease the daily traffic crunch in downtown West Palm Beach by giving drivers more alternatives launched Thursday. Among its backers: Downtown’s biggest high-rise builder, the Related Cos., the city and the Downtown Development Authority, which provided $100,000 in seed money. Its…
Racetrack chess board: Pieces in play
It’s happening, County Commissioner Sara Baxter told 250 racing fans Wednesday night. GL Homes is building a 200-acre off-highway vehicle park on its land west of The Acreage. And giving it to county residents free of charge, she said at a town hall…
A drugmaker fueled Florida's opioid epidemic with a flood of oxycodone. It's balking at paying.
By Pat Beall Mallinckrodt said it is exploring “alternatives” to paying this month’s installment on a $1.6 billion settlement stemming from oxycodone sales In 2009, the little pharmacy off Lucerne Avenue in Lake Worth had a drug problem. Posted signs warned that…
Exclusive: City offers $1 million to retake Photo Centre spot
City officials haven’t said publicly what they want to put there but in legal papers, the attorney for the Photo Centre said officials wanted to get market-rate rents for the prominent Clematis Street location.…
Cheap commute: Palm Tran pitches Port St. Lucie Express
Here’s a way to take a shot at the high cost of housing in Palm Beach County: Create an express bus service to Port St. Lucie. Why it matters: So many people live in Port St. Lucie but work in Palm Beach County that…
Palm Beach County is growing, but it’s not crazy growth
West Palm Beach clocks in as our fastest-growing city.…
Next tourist draw: Auto racing
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? “This is not a stop…
Disgraced Palm Beach doctor claims lying sober home mastermind put him away
One-time colleagues Mark Agresti, the doctor, and Kenneth Bailynson, the sober home operator, duke it out in criminal court. A federal judge showed no mercy last year when he sentenced Dr. Mark Agresti to eight years in prison after the once-respected psychiatrist…
Five-star debacle: The Palm Beach International Film Festival that never was
Bankrupt promoter lures filmmakers; no movies screened, tempers flare, drama ensues. Turning to filmmaking to fill his empty days during the pandemic, William McNeice was ecstatic when his third movie was accepted into what was billed as the 28th annual Palm Beach…
Lawyer Gregg Lerman wants to be your state attorney
There could be a race for the Palm Beach County job. Seven years after Gregg Lerman lost a nasty judicial race that ended with the stunning removal of his opponent from office, the 62-year-old criminal defense attorney is ready to hit the…
Florida bill would exclude minor league baseball players from state's minimum wage
House legislators added an amendment that would also eliminate living-wage ordinances adopted by Palm Beach County. Baseball started it. Uber-rich baseball team owners flocked to Tallahassee this year. Their goal: a legislative runaround. Florida voters mandated a state $15-an-hour minimum wage in…
Benny's on the Beach by the numbers
Looking at the lease negotiations for Lake Worth Beach’s landmark pier. It may be too soon to know if Benny’s on the Beach will pack up the linens and silverware and make good on Lee Lipton’s threat to leave his oceanfront eatery.…
New apartment buildings augur change in city’s oldest Black neighborhood
The Grand and Flagler Station start welcoming renters in the Northwest Neighborhood just north of Banyan Boulevard. Over the past 120-plus years, West Palm Beach’s Northwest Neighborhood never has had two apartment buildings as big as the two that are opening within…
Rent prices set by computer
The algorithm turns market-based competition on its head, South Florida plaintiffs argue in their antitrust suits. Spurred by sky-high apartment prices, four South Florida rent-price lawsuits have been bundled and will join almost two dozen others in Tennessee federal court. Why we…
Outrage over the 500 block of Clematis
More than 30 people urged the mayor to reconsider his decision to reopen it to auto traffic on weekends. Dozens of people filed into the West Palm Beach City Commission chambers Monday to protest Mayor Keith James’ decision to end the permits…
No homes on submerged lands off Singer Island, federal judge rules
Ruling hands Fane Lozman a defeat but Lozman, who has twice taken Riviera Beach to the U.S. Supreme Court and won, is going for a three-peat By Jane Musgrave Five years after Fane Lozman embarrassed Riviera Beach — again — by notching…
Five minutes with pro golfer Jeffrey Cunningham
Cardinal Newman High School graduate and professional golfer Jeffrey Cunningham is part of the future of golf. Cunningham was a standout player at Drexel University in Philadelphia. He is the son of the pioneering Black doctor Pamela Jeffrey Cunningham, who died in…