March 29, 2024

Southeast Florida

Scripps Florida faces another environmental challenge

| 1/2/2014

In 2004, Scripps ran into a torrent of opposition from environmental groups when it announced plans to build its Florida campus on a 1,900-acre Palm Beach County site called Mecca Farms. Mecca itself was a grove and sand mine of little environmental value. But a Scripps campus there would lead to sprawl, argued 1000 Friends of Florida and other groups. They said Mecca wasn’t a suitable place for the huge biobusiness cluster the state hoped to see created. The battle over the site grew so intense some feared the county would lose Scripps.

Environmental groups argued a superior site for Scripps was in Palm Beach Gardens at a site known as the Briger tract, a 682-acre parcel straddling I-95 that was hemmed in by development. “Environmentalists Back Briger Tract,” read the headline in one south Florida newspaper. Eventually, Scripps opted to put its first buildings in the Abacoa development adjacent to Briger, while Briger was seen as a site for expansion and the bio-cluster. Palm Beach Gardens went on to designate Briger for a bio-science future and entitled the site for 4 million square feet of offices and biotech facilities, plus homes and a hotel. A 1000 Friends of Florida’s press release cheered, “Major Victory for Smart Growth Advocates: Scripps Moved to Abacoa/Briger Site!”

That was then. As Scripps and Kolter Group, a West Palm Beach developer, move to develop their pieces of Briger, a new set of environmental groups has filed a legal challenge to stop them.

South Florida Wildlands Association, Sierra Club, Palm Beach County Environmental Coalition and the Green Party of Palm Beach County filed under the Endangered Species Act to halt development to protect the threatened Eastern Indigo snake. A U.S. Fish and Wildlife survey in 2011 didn’t see any snakes on the site but said it likely held six.

Charles Pattison, president of 1000 Friends, says his group isn’t involved in the latest stop-Scripps effort. He says it’s always been a challenge for the environmental cause in Florida to “speak with one voice.” The groups that fought against Mecca saw development there as significantly more damaging and championed Briger as a “trade off of sorts,” he says.

Scripps spokeswoman Mika Elizabeth Ono says Scripps is working with the county and Kolter to coordinate development. U. S. Fish and Wildlife’s official opinion on developing Briger is that it would mean an end to Eastern Indigos there but poses no threat to the species’ continued existence.

BUSINESS BRIEFS

BOCA RATON — Porn publisher and matchmaking website company FriendFinder Network, which had the worst IPO debut of 2011, filed for Chapter 11 protection.

FORT LAUDERDALE — Robotic-assisted surgery company Mako Surgical was acquired by Michiganbased Stryker for $1.65 billion, or $30 per share, in cash. >> Founder, principal and vice president Steven Steiner, 61, a defendant in the viatical settlements Mutual Benefits Corp. fraud case, received 15 years in prison for money laundering and obstruction of justice in using and concealing more than $15 million derived from the fraud. The MBC fraud involved life insurance policies MBC bought from AIDS patients, the chronically ill and elderly that were then broken up into interests and the death benefits sold to 30,000 investors. Investors lost more than $750 million. Steiner awaits trial on other charges. >> TD Bank agreed to pay $52.5 million to settle federal civil charges that the bank and former TD regional vice president Frank A. Spinosa violated securities laws in the Scott Rothstein billiondollar Ponzi scheme. TD and Spinosa allegedly defrauded Investors in the scheme headed by Rothstein, a since-disbarred lawyer now serving a 50-year prison sentence, by providing misleading documents and false statements about Rothstein accounts at the bank. Spinosa awaits trial. Stonegate Bank acquired Pompano Beach-based Florida Shores Bancorp and its subsidiaries Florida Shores Bank-Southeast and Florida Shores Bank- Southwest in a deal valued at $48.8 million, increasing Stonegate’s assets of $1.7 billion.

Tags: Southeast

Florida Business News

Florida News Releases

Florida Trend Video Pick

Bitter-to-swallow cocoa costs force chocolate shops to raise prices
Bitter-to-swallow cocoa costs force chocolate shops to raise prices

Central Floirda chocolate shops are left with a bitter taste as cocoa prices hit an all-time high earlier this week.

Video Picks | Viewpoints@FloridaTrend

Ballot Box

Should Congress ban the popular social media app TikTok in the U.S.?

  • Yes
  • No
  • Need more details
  • What is TikTok?
  • Other (Comment below)

See Results

Florida Trend Media Company
490 1st Ave S
St Petersburg, FL 33701
727.821.5800

© Copyright 2024 Trend Magazines Inc. All rights reserved.