West Palm Beach city commissioners have unanimously advanced an 18-story, 400-room hotel next to the Palm Beach County Convention Center, and split 3-2 in the same meeting on a separate agreement that clears the way for the hotel’s replacement parking land to come off the tax rolls.
Both votes came at the commission’s Aug. 3 meeting. The hotel vote was first reading of Ordinance No. 5179-26, which creates a Convention Center District and a Hotel II Subarea inside the CityPlace Commercial Planned Development and writes development rules for a site that has never had any. Two companion resolutions, one setting the subarea regulations and one approving the site plan itself, were taken up for discussion only and return with the ordinance at second reading.
The meeting’s only divided vote came earlier in the night, on Resolution No. 186-26, a first amendment to the 2012 convention center hotel agreement among the city, the West Palm Beach Community Redevelopment Agency, CityPlace Hotel LLC, Palm Beach County and CityPlace South Tower II LLC.
City Attorney Kimberly Rothenburg said the 2012 agreement required the garage land to remain on the tax rolls at all times, and that the county asked the city and the CRA to give up that provision. Under the amendment, the parcel may come off the roll if the county acquires it, it qualifies for a tax exemption or immunity, and the new hotel receives its final certificate of occupancy.