Palm Beach County, Fla., Chooses New Site for Scripps Research Institute
By Josh Hafenbrack, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Feb. 14–A fractured Palm Beach County Commission chose the Abacoa development in Jupiter as the new home for The Scripps Research Institute Tuesday, defying Gov. Jeb Bush in a crucial decision for the future of biomedical research in Florida.
The dramatic 4-to-3 decision puts California-based Scripps on 30 acres at Florida Atlantic University’s campus, where Scripps already has its temporary facilities. Future Scripps labs would go on 70 acres at the Briger property in Palm Beach Gardens, separated from Abacoa by Donald Ross Road.
Cost to county taxpayers: $25.4 million, according to officials. That figure includes buying the land for Scripps’ headquarters, hooking up utilities and burying power lines.
An $8 million pot of money for minority programs swayed Commissioner Addie Greene, the swing vote, in favor of the Abacoa proposal, she said after the decision.
“I wanted to hear specifically what you are going to do for the African-American minority community,” said Greene, whose minority district is based in Riviera Beach.
Tuesday’s vote shifts Scripps and related development away from the county’s rural citrus fields and into urban communities. Scripps had been slated at Mecca Farms, but a federal judge stopped construction last fall at the orange grove, citing an inadequate environmental review. The county paid $60 million for Mecca, but that 1,919-acre property’s future is now uncertain.
Scripps at Abacoa will form alongside a baseball stadium where the Florida Marlins play spring training games, a town center and rows of upscale homes and condos. In choosing the site, commissioners sharply changed course from past decisions that spurned Abacoa-Briger as a potential home for Scripps.
Commissioners also Tuesday rejected a southern Palm Beach County bid based in Boca Raton, which appeared to be gaining momentum, culminating with Bush’s endorsement on Monday.
During the four-hour meeting Tuesday, Boca Raton slashed its cost from $23.1 million to $16.9 million — making it the cheapest by $8.5 million.
“I guess we had everyone except the majority of the County Commission,” Boca Raton Mayor Steven Abrams said. “Boca Raton will survive.”
Bush panned the Jupiter site in his formal report Monday, saying there wasn’t enough land. After the county vote, Bush said he was not disappointed in the decision, yet he also declined to say that he was OK with the site.
“The good news is that it appears they are on that path (toward construction),” the governor said. “There are still some uncertainties about the site that need to be worked out.”
Bush personally lured Scripps to Florida in 2003, the institute’s first-ever East Coast expansion, with $600 million in state and county money. Scripps is supposed to kindle a biotech industry in South Florida and beyond, creating thousands of jobs and forcing dramatic improvements in the state’s educational landscape.
“The governor has veto power on this,” Commissioner Tony Masilotti said. “If he doesn’t like (Abacoa), he’ll veto it and we’ll move on to another site.”
Barring the governor’s intervention, the focus now shifts to arranging new contracts and hiring a construction team for the labs, which could take eight months. The construction tab, once $137 million, is expected to soar to $175 million or more.
During the months-long site debate, Scripps favored Abacoa because the institute’s temporary facilities already were thriving at the site and scientists like the eastern location.
“We’ve very happy we’ve taken this first step … to getting a permanent facility,” said Scripps’ chief operating officer Doug Bingham.
Masilotti said he thought the Jupiter and Boca Raton proposals were “equal.” What tipped the scales: real estate prices. He said land is about $1.5 million an acre near Boca Raton’s proposed Scripps campus, which is unaffordable for biotech startups.
In their presentation, Jupiter officials said with the Abacoa site, “job creation will stay within Palm Beach County,” as Jupiter Vice Mayor Todd Wodraskaput it, repeating a common line of attack against the Boca Raton site: The benefits of biotech would migrate south to Broward County.
But for all the chatter about cost to taxpayers and land for biotech spinoffs, dueling packages for the black community took center stage.
In the south county bid, Boca Raton and Delray Beach teamed to offer $4 million for diversity programs, with a Greene-led panel of black leaders doling out money for scholarships, hiring programs and the like.
But north county officials had a trump card with their own package, including $3 million from the town of Jupiter and a promise of $5 million from a group of private businesses led by Abacoa developer George de Guardiola — the latter cobbled together over the weekend.
Staff writers Stephen Deere and Linda Kleindienst of the Tallahassee bureau contributed to this report.
—–
To see more of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel — including its homes, jobs, cars and other classified listings — or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.sun-sentinel.com.
Copyright (c) 2006, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.