The intentional comingling of two separate but very important topics to create public confusion in Lake Worth: The City's beach and Gulfstream hotel

The blog post that follows is somewhat lengthy and you may want to read it in parts, or segments, at a time. Also included are details of the proposed Gulfstream hotel redevelopment project; the Historic Resource Preservation Board (HRPB) has a meeting this Wednesday (3/9) to finish up the last of the issues not addressed on February 17th. The upshot of this blog post is thus: Frank McAlonan, who is challenging Commissioner Andy Amoroso, is exploiting public confusion over "the beach" to cast a veil of suspicion over the Gulfstream hotel project. Ryan Hartman, the Anarchist candidate, is also engaged in the same tactic. Read below as I make my case and hopefully you'll make the right decision on March 15th, election day in Lake Worth.

The video below is from the Bryant Park candidate forum held on January 25th. The question asked was as follows:

"Do any of you really believe that there is going to be a private beach club and convention center at the beach? If so, what documentation do you have to support that?

In response the incumbents and candidates went down the line and answered, one-by-one, including the Anarchist candidate Ryan Hartman. They all said "No." Vice Mayor Scott Maxwell went further and said, "Over my dead body."

Then Frank McAlonan said the following:

There are many things that we can draw from this. The first is he didn't answer the question, other than to say he didn't have any evidence "right now." Would there be some evidence from "secret meetings" that he's already irresponsibly claimed? If you weren't aware, the chair of the Planning/Zoning board has asked for an apology from McAlonan. Inexplicably, he didn't know the Gulfstream hotel is going through the HRPB, not the Planning/Zoning Board. He then went on to accuse the staff and all-volunteer board of not being transparent. Complete nonsense.

Will this Wednesday be another in a long line of missed opportunities to explain himself? He's avoided any public comment thus far at any City meeting on any issue. Something the Palm Beach Post editorial board may want to address in their upcoming candidate endorsements maybe?

Back to the question asked above, he continued to not answer the question, but goes on about he's worked with a couple of developers in the past—no specifics. He points out how 'they' were lobbying for six stories, and that you don't "lobby for six stories and build two to five, or whatever that may be." Finally, he concludes that he doesn't know what 'they' have in mind. Nothing in his response related to the beach which was the question: McAlonan only focused on the Gulfstream hotel. Why?

The question was about the beach, remember, it was not about the historic Gulfstream hotel. The only thing this "lobbying" that McAlonan refers to was the rezoning that the hotel property owner requested. This ended up being reviewed by the HRPB who unanimously recommended to the City Commission approval of that request. It passed on a 3-2 vote that changed the western side of the Gulfstream property to Downtown Mixed use from Multifamily 30. That rezoning allowed a hotel of up to 65 feet if it has 50 or more rooms since it is east of Federal Hwy. and its future land use designation is already Downtown. How is that "lobbying to six stories"?

This is the same rezoning that is the subject of a lawsuit against the City of Lake Worth. This lawsuit was filed by three people, one of whom is former commissioner, JoAnn Golden. Just so we know where Ms. Golden is coming from, let's remember that she contributed $200, for starters, to candidate McAlonan's campaign. The image below is from a treasurer report filing from his campaign.

Now let's look at what is actually being proposed made possible through the hotel rezoning, that McAlonan referred to as "lobbying." This comes from the site plan that will be reviewed by the HRPB once again this Wednesday. First, here are two views of the hotel and its addition (you can see more detail in the images by clicking on them):

Looking on the right side you can see the proposed addition made possible by the rezoning. Notice the addition is set back farther than the historic hotel so the Gulfstream remains the "star" of the property.

You can see the proposed five (5) story structure at South Lakeside Drive and Lake Ave. To the right you see a rather diminutive (in scale) parking structure that is all of two (2) stories.

Below you can see the streetscape of the existing historic hotel building and the addition of the new hotel on the western side of the property (to the right). The graphic is more for illustration of how the buildings will work together.

These three buildings will be operating together and the linkage is provided at the second floor. The second floor of the new hotel will be about the same elevation as the historic hotel. If you study the elevations and measurements of both buildings you discover some interesting facts. Here is the historic hotel's north elevation alone with measurements by floor:

The Gulfstream hotel's second floor sits at just below 16 feet. Of course, this reflects the first floors use as common space for a lobby, restaurant and bar areas. That is six feet taller than the other residential scale floors above which contain the guest rooms. A hotel lobby typically has more volume to create a welcoming and uncrowded feeling. It also makes for a more pleasant and gracious environment.

Just for fun let's say the Gulfstream hasn't been at this location since 1925. If it were to be designed according to the null-and-void Charter amendment height limitation of 45 feet, the hotel would be a total of three (3) stories tall, unless you wanted a fourth floor that was 7 feet tall to its highest point, which would give you an unworkable ceiling height of maybe 6 feet at the most. With the addition of A/C and elevator towers on the roof, at that point you eliminate the possibility of a fourth floor entirely. At the proposed room layout of approximately 19 guest rooms per floor, that would leave you with a hotel of 38 rooms on two floors.

Here is an elevation drawing of the new building on the western half of the property, along with accompanying measurements:

The yellow highlight shows where the new building exceeds 45 feet which the new zoning allows on this parcel.

First of all, the proposed hotel building next to the Gulfstream is about 3′ shy of the maximum height (65') allowed by the Comprehensive Plan and Land Development Regulations. The building will have a first floor with a larger volume than the upper floors to correspond to the historic hotel to the east. The second floor elevation is a little over 15′. That leaves 30′ to fall below the now-"null-and-void" height Charter limitation of 45′. Again, adhering to that "null and void" limitation would eliminate a 'human-sized' fourth floor ceiling height. We would be left with only two floors of guest rooms. For a new building built to 45′ that would leave about 20 rooms per floor, or a total of 40 rooms. Thus, the number of proposed rooms would be reduced by 47, which is 45% less than what is designed for the new building with the 65′ height restriction.

That explains the issue alluded to in candidate McAlonan's answer to the question about the beach that turned out to be mostly all about the hotel. This is intentional misdirection and disinformation by the opposition to link their RED "hands off the beach" signs with the Gulfstream hotel. 

The question that was posed: "Do any of you really believe that there is going to be a private beach club and convention center at the beach? If so, what documentation do you have to support that?" Everyone answered "No", ergo there is no documentation either.

I am sure the tall tales being told to Lake Worth residents/voters does as much to confuse and blur the two issues as much as possible. This is to make it seem that "they", the owners of the Gulfstream hotel still have notions of doing something at the beach. 

As Mayor Pam Triolo explained after McAlonan's vague, non-answer, she stated clearly the beach WILL ALWAYS BE PUBLIC AND IT WILL ALWAYS BE OURS. And she explained that the City gets approached regularly with proposals to do things at the beach that are not currently there now. The City has to react to those proposals in some way and the Mayor reminded everyone that we can talk about whatever is proposed and "decide together."

Let the record show that the City Commission discarded, unanimously, any further discussion about additions to the beach and extinguished what was known as the ITN (Invitation To Negotiate process). That was the source of the "secret meetings" referred to last year and to others, including McAlonan, who repeat the mantra like trained parrots to this day. One more thing about those "secret" meetings: If they were secret, why do so many people know about them and what was said during them? I hope this clears some things up.  

Be wary of what you are hearing at the doors!

McAlonan is campaigning on a platform of fear of what could happen at the beach and is being supported by the same people that are suing the City to stop the Gulfstream hotel project. Do not base your decisions in the upcoming March elections on fear mongering. The future of our historic Gulfstream hotel depends on it. 

And I hope to see a big turnout at the HRPB meeting this Wednesday (3/9) starting at 6:00.