Paul Cameron goes on frequent walks along the nature trail near his Palm Beach Gardens home to keep his Parkinson鈥檚 disease at bay.
So he was among the first to notice when city contractors shut down the trail in early August and started leveling the 14-acre forest on the western edge of the Gardens North County District Park along Central Boulevard.
He worried about the dozen gopher tortoises that he saw in their underground tunnels on his daily walks in the regional park. And the eagles that he said nested in the trees. And the loss of green space.
And no one would tell him why. He said he spent weeks trying to get information, including a building permit, from the city before a meeting Wednesday with two top staffers, Leisure Services Administrator Charlotte Presensky and Engineer Todd Engle.
They weren鈥檛 just paving Cameron鈥檚 paradise to put up a parking lot, although paved parking for 200 cars is in the plan (and grass parking for 400 more). The city is planning to build a metal-clad fieldhouse with 12 indoor courts, including six for basketball, he told after the meeting.
The move would end five years of city efforts to work with a private developer to build the facility, required under a contract the city signed in 2018 with Palm Beach County, which owns the site. It also would foreclose any chance of moving from Plant Drive Park to the regional park on Central Boulevard.
During the 90-minute meeting at the park, Cameron said he mentioned the eagles to city officials. They assured him that there had been no eagles in the park.
鈥淪ure enough, one came out of the heavens above and perched up with a bass on the stadium lighting,鈥� said Cameron, a longtime boat captain.
He told the city officials: 鈥淵ou took away his home.鈥�
Stet鈥檚 requests for information from the city were pending but Palm Beach County Parks and Recreation Director Jennifer Cirillo said on Wednesday that the city told her it had granted a permit for the land-clearing months ago and had a conceptual plan to build a fieldhouse on the site
Tonight, the Gardens City Council will consider spending $8 million for the fieldhouse as part of its $20 million capital spending plan, a small piece of .
The city also is , including a $20 million loan, to rebuild the Burns Road Community Center.
Two failed private partnerships
The fieldhouse decision would end an odyssey in which the city tried twice since 2019 to bring in private partners to build indoor recreational facilities at the district park. Under its lease with the county, the city has until 2028 to complete construction.
The city relied on sales tax proceeds to build most of the park, which is dominated by soccer fields. The park is next to the city-owned tennis and pickleball center. It stretches from Central Boulevard to Shady Lakes Drive along 117th Court North across from Timber Trace Elementary School and Watson B. Duncan Middle School.
The county bought the 82-acre property from the successors to the MacArthur Foundation for $3.1 million in April 2000. It leased the land to the city in 2018, ending years of rancor that grew out of on the site.
In 2019, the city agreed to lease the park鈥檚 westernmost 14 acres to the Palm Beach North Athletic Foundation, which proposed a fieldhouse and ice-rink complex. But the city , saying the nonprofit had failed to meet financial milestones during the COVID pandemic.
At the time, City Manager Ron Ferris told the City Council that he had queries from seven other interested parties.
A year later, after the city sought new partners, only two emerged. The , a subsidiary of Mammoth Sports Construction of Meriden, Kansas, in September 2023.
included six indoor basketball courts, six indoor pickleball courts, 14 covered outdoor pickleball courts, a miniature golf course and a restaurant.
Negotiations hit a snag when Mammoth asked for city financial backing. The city ended talks on Jan. 9.
Plant Drive Park ice rink
At the same time, the city entertained offers for Plant Drive Park next to Palm Beach Gardens High School off of Military Trail.
The Palm Beach North Athletic Foundation pitched its ice-rink complex, without a fieldhouse. and no opposition, the City Council granted the foundation a 40-year lease of the park in April, conditioned on the foundation raising $40 million in 15 months.
Residents decried the decision to convert the city鈥檚 oldest park, home to a free skatepark, into an ice rink run by a private foundation. They urged the council to rescind the lease and negotiate to build the ice rink at the Gardens District Park, where it initially had been proposed.
The decision to build a fieldhouse at the district park would eliminate that option.
Cameron, who has lived in the neighboring Bent Tree community since 1998, remembers when the park was a cow pasture. He bemoaned the closing of the nature trail and the removal of a 50-foot wooded buffer on its north side, which he said the city had promised years ago to retain.
鈥淭hat trail was important to me. I don鈥檛 know if it鈥檚 going to come back or not,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t was supposed to be saved.鈥�
Cameron said he would address the City Council at its . The livestream can be viewed .
