West Palm Beach's Transit Village Plans

"West Palm Beach on the Right Track With Transit Village Plans" by v. johns

I’m reading in today’s Sunday edition of the Palm Beach Post about Palm Beach county commissioners’ plans to bring a transit-oriented development called Transit Village to West Palm Beach that would be located between Banyan to the north and Fern Street to the south. It would sit in a wedged area between Clear Lake (Think Channel 5 building) and City Place.

I've been hearing about this Transit Village for quite some time now. The first time I even heard the term “transit-oriented development” was at an SFECC Study meeting in Jupiter awhile back. Although the concept was already in my mind, the vocabulary was rather new.

With Martin County officials seemingly continually making plans to destroy the county’s urban services boundary (I’m not certain about this mind you), I hope residents here are prepared to embrace transit and transit-oriented development the way Palm Beach, Broward and Dade have done, because once its all said and done... We’re definitely gonna need it! I live in Indiantown and I DO NOT look forward to having to travel between other towns to get to and from Stuart. Then again, by the time Martin becomes so-called “Browardized,” I may have already moved to Broward!

So, getting back to West Palm Beach’s Transit Village, I had no idea the project was as huge as it looks on paper. According to the Post, this development will be composed of the following: a SciEnergy Center, an Intermodal Transit Center, hotel towers, an historic train station, new transit overpasses, office towers, a World Trade Center, a parking garage, workforce/student housing, and various retail outlets and shops. My childhood dream was to be an architect and to see this thing conceptualized on paper is just incredibly amazing. The graphic in the Palm Beach Post (on page 6B) is credited to Michael Graves and Associates Inc. and REG Architects Inc.

I once worked on a moving assignment through Manpower at one of the condos that sit off Clear Lake. The view, overlooking the lake and the Okeechobee Blvd. I-95 interchange, is awesome! West Palm Beach, because of its strict zoning requirements and limits on height, has a certain dynamism that even Miami and Ft. Lauderdale can’t capture because of the buildings being built down there blocking everything out of view in some cases. You can drive through Downtown West Palm Beach, on some streets, and actually SEE the skyline as you drive through there. In a sense, the city appears to be larger than it actually is. Still, I’d like to see one signature tall building emerge from its skyline that will make it recognizable around the world.

Aside from the view, the major human capital significance of this development is that it creates the potential for people with absolutely nothing to make a living from scratch. I’m a big fan of Dave Ramsey, author of the Total Money Makeover. His idea of having a vehicle that’s bought and paid for, even if it’s a “clunker” holds well. BELIEVE ME: Car payments are no fun and actually impede use of funds that can be better put towards other more important things… Like FOOD. So, what’s the next best thing? The next best thing is having mass transit serve as “your car” until you can actually afford to buy one. Having no expenses related to transportation is one of the most liberating emotions one can experience. Whether you have one or not.

At a whopping price of half a bill, I hope Palm Beach County gets its way in constructing its Transit Village. While these types of projects cost mounds of cash, (1) money spent today is always better than money spent in the future. West Palm should know better than any city around. And, (2) in business the mantra “It takes money to make money” should also be accepted with regard to public matters. Businesses lose money on a lot of things that attract customers to their shops while making even more back on core products that customers actually crave.

Like private enterprise, public commons, through local, regional, state and even national government is one way that Americans can invest in their current and future prosperity. So, let’s not play this game that, sadly, the “Conserva-Dems” and the “Republican rank and file” like to play in always describing public works as a waste of money. This Transit Village will bring in far more money (tax dollars and jobs), over the long haul than can ever be done without it. Still, let’s hope that the “big-spending liberals” don’t get so happy spending it on a plethora of ornamental public works that they forget to save some of the money made from it for a rainy day…