Developer Wins Yearlong Fight To Replace Palm Beach Raceway With Warehouses

Palm Beach County commissioners reversed course Thursday and unanimously approved a site plan to redevelop the Palm Beach International Raceway into warehouses. The approval comes less than a month after a judge ruled in a nonbinding decision that the county commission had improperly rejected the site plan in January. 

The judge gave the commissioners 60 days to reconsider the project, and Thursday’s approval clears the way for the site’s owner, IRG Sports + Entertainment, to replace the racetrack with a 2.1M SF development called The Palm Beach Logistics Center. 

“We thank the Palm Beach Board of County Commissioners for their time and attention, and careful consideration of the Special Magistrate's recommendations on this matter,” Seth Behn, a spokesperson for the property owners, said in a statement to Bisnow. “The Palm Beach Logistics Center will bring hundreds of quality jobs, millions in new tax dollars, and further in-demand e-commerce infrastructure for the County.”

IRG Sports, a subsidiary of the global investment firm Sixth Street, purchased the raceway in 2015 and ran the track for more than five years before shutting it down last April. The closure angered local racing fans, with some of its patrons asking the owner to reopen the track or sell it to someone who would. 

Dozens of racing fans and local residents spoke out against the project in January at the initial county commission vote on the project, WPBF reported. The site plan was rejected in a 4-2 decision at the meeting, and the commission passed a resolution saying the proposal failed to show that the development met traffic requirements and safety standards. 

The owner of the racetrack at 17047 Bee Line Highway, west of Jupiter, brought the commission’s decision to court, and a special magistrate judge ruled on May 3 that the commission was wrong to deny the application. 

Judge Bram Canter wrote in his decision that the proposed warehouse fit the site’s land use designation and zoning and said the owners met a “changed conditions” requirement that would allow it to replace the racetrack with warehouses by stating that the region’s population growth and an increase in online shopping had created a need for large industrial sites in the region.

Canter said the commission didn't adequately articulate how the project failed to meet the safety and traffic standards and that the application’s denial unfairly burdened the owner. 

“The unspoken proposition in the statements made by members of the public in this matter is that the Owners must revive and operate the Raceway or get someone else to do it,” Canter wrote in the decision. “However, even a new owner cannot be forced to operate the racetrack.”