It can be a place for future employment centers and substantial tax base, but the prospect for that is over the long term. I would say in the five to ten year horizon - not next year. The Park of Commerce is currently being peddled as some sort of economic "panacea" that will solve all our problems and that it is all due to the current Commission and the city administration. Do not believe it.
Below is an over-inclusive representation of the Lake Worth Park of Commerce boundaries. In reality it doesn't include all the properties along Lake Worth Road and those along 10th Avenue North. Depending on who you talk to, it might include the some of the area east of Boutwell Drive and north of 10th Avenue North - but that would likely depend on the nature of the type of project. The overall size of the "park" is about 320 acres plus or minus.
Somewhere around 2003, the city entered into an Interlocal Agreement with Palm Beach County that included the annexation of properties that were formerly in the unincorporated area of the County. Before the agreement existed, there was a lot of confusion regarding which properties were under which jurisdiction - the County or the City of Lake Worth. This led to a lot of finger pointing about whose responsibility to enforce code issues it was and, therefore, some properties were tremendously blighted - code enforcement and regulatory nightmares.
The Interlocal Agreement gave a period of time for the city to annex properties on a voluntary basis and give property owners an amnesty period to come into some sort of compliance. I believe that fees were waived for annexation and land use plan changes. Many property owners took advantage of that period of time under the agreement - some did not.
The situation is improved from what it was prior to the annexation of these properties, but there are substantial obstacles that lay in the path of any "targeted" employer that thinks it is possible to pull permits for a site and building in the near future.
The article mentions a grant given to the city by the Economic Development administration for $250,000. It has been about a year since the announcement of that grant has been made. It was only through a high degree of persuasion to the current City Manager that the city came up with the required $250,000 matching money. This was added to the budget after the current year's budget had already been approved, but the city knew about the grant award long before that event.
A study by CDM is underway to assess the infrastructure needs of the entire park. The article lists them as follows:
"...the needs study will make suggestions for improvements such as widening and connecting roads, installing traffic signals, burying power lines, building a telecommunications grid and putting in landscaping, street lighting and drainage work. The upgrades are intended to improve conditions for existing businesses and to lure new companies."
This is a "study" at this point in time that will be completed later this year. Completion of a "study" does nothing to complete the required work. Given the extent of some of the improvements, it wouldn't be wise to attract an employer of any size until that work is done - the entire layout of the park and existing property lines may change due to infrastructure work involved. Drainage is listed almost as an after-thought but is really the major issue that must be address across the entire 320 acres - that amounts to a lot of pipe and a lot of disruption of the current conditions.
Once we have identified the needs, according to this study, then we will need to pursue funding sources. What are those going to be? Is the city going to establish a Business Improvement District - similar to a CRA - to assess properties and support a bond for those improvements? Is the Federal government going to have anything like the stimulus project grants in the next few years to fund these sorts of improvements? Does the city have its own resources to make those improvements? Do we ask an employer, that we are attempting to "lure" to put up money for the improvements?
One thing that the article doesn't mention is the notion of traffic concurrency - proving that there is enough capacity on the roadways. That amount of acreage could potentially support a lot of building square footage - beyond what is already existing. Given the current way we get around, primarily in single passenger automobiles, that uses up a lot of capacity on the adjacent roadways. 10th Avenue North has had a "CRALLS - Constrained Roadways at Lower Levels of Service" designation for a very long time. What this means is that the road can't be expanded physically to accommodate all the traffic that is there now, let alone in the future. Any project within the Lake Worth Park of Commerce of any size will be up against this wall. No one has addressed this issue - that has to be done through the County and the State of Florida - initiated in some way by the city. Much can be made of the nearby connections to transit, residential areas and Palm Beach State College.
Beyond this - click on the image above and look at the "mobile home courts" present in the Park of Commerce. What is going to happen to them? This land use issue has been before the City Commission before, with many of the residents of those "mobile home courts" in attendance. The Commission, at the time, gave them assurances that they wouldn't be forced out. Is this still realistic if the city really wants this to become an industrial park that it can market to employers? How does it fit into the overall layout and the time schedule for park development?
Then we have to consider our electric utility - do we have enough capacity to serve a large user of electricity - I remember hearing that the city told one such employer to look somewhere else due to that very issue. With the highest commercial electric rates in the state of Florida, do we have a chance of attracting any large employer compared to other locations? We are also under the strictest water control measures in Palm Beach County right now - what impact would that have for an industrial user of water resources? What sorts of green building standards is the city going to employ for new development here?
I'm not being a "stick in the mud" here, but these are all realistic questions that - beyond the study that is currently underway and the work that has been done to date - the city has a lot on its plate that it must resolve before anything substantial moves forward in this area.
Forever, I have maintained that Lake Worth has an under-staffed and under-appreciated Planning and Zoning function. All these questions are the long term questions that can be addressed by a fully staffed and funded planning department - something that other communities that compete with us have and utilize to the fullest extent. After this proposed budget is approved this year, the planning and zoning staff for Lake Worth will be almost non-existent - with the additional demand of a separate historic preservation board.
Good luck everyone!
![Dr. W. H. Cotton’s ode: “Oh, My Lake Worth, Florida!” [circa 1920].](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yhHyCn84ZIQ/WezjlEL-0tI/AAAAAAAAPZ4/CzkhriK6zpEJJ3d9Je1495d49gIhnMlxACK4BGAYYCw/s1600/LakeWorthPioneers.JPG)
