The Sunset Lounge, a 1920s-era supper club extensively restored with $16 million in taxpayer money, has sat idle for two years since its renovation, validating the complaints of some that West Palm Beach should never have purchased and rebuilt the iconic venue.
Rather than hosting famous entertainment acts and igniting the revitalization of the city’s largely Black Northwest community, the empty Sunset stands — for now, at least — as a monument to government inertia, protracted legal battles, and, some fear, pique.
That could change by year’s end.
In March, West Palm Beach’s Community Redevelopment Agency, which uses taxpayer money to revitalize distressed pockets of the city, submitted an updated management agreement to Vita Lounge, the local group of largely Black financial, entertainment, and dining officials who won the bid to manage the Sunset.
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