The project aims to bring an artistic and economic boost to the city, but concerns are mounting over the potential financial burden on taxpayers.
Lake Worth Beach took a big step toward a plan that would have the city donate downtown property for a developer to build a $60 million mixed-use museum/apartment complex.
The core of the plan calls for the city to donate 1.7 acres to the Wiener Museum’s development company, United Management. The property, valued by the city at about $3.3 million, is at the southwest corner of Lake Avenue and South M Street. [pbpost]
9 comments:
I think we're making a little too much of Lake Worth. It's just a little town with a mixture of buildings and cultures, not unlike any other little town. Did George Washington sleep here? Was the Declaration of Independence signed here? Give it a rest! If you have nothing to do, read a book about Napoleon or Peter the Great. Go to the beach. Buy an ice cream cone. No more museums, please!
I agree, nothing historic here, architecturally or culturally nor is it a quaint beach town or little fishing village. Most reside here because it is affordable and with that comes the riffraff and criminal element. Lock your doors and leave nothing of value outside only advice I give.
The town of Lake Worth is known for great restaurants and some decent pubs. People come here for this from far away. Lake Worth also has a pretense of an Art culture, due to the Street Paining Festival and a handful of Artsy shops that are able to "scrape" by and not go out of business each month. Lake Worth has a great many low-income artists, artists that dream about making it big, and they hang out together in town and try to make the town look artsy. But there is no real Art revenue in Lake Worth to make artists wealthy. No one has ever traveled to Lake Worth to purchase expensive Art. We have no famous College of Arts or Juilliard, and not even a Gallery where thousands of people have visited each month and paid into the upkeep of the Gallery. Nothing, no track record, no chance for this. People come to Lake Worth to see art that a gifted high school student could create, without paying for it. If they truly wanted a serious Art Experience, they would go to a place known for this--they would go to the "Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) | New York City", they would go to the " Metropolitan Museum of Art | New York City, NY", they would go to the "The Art Institute of Chicago...." but they would never, ever visit Lake Worth for this. You have to wonder, is it the Town lying to itself, does it imagine this is anything but an enormous waste of taxpayer money--money that COULD be spent on a project that would help the downtown merchants ( the glass museum will not help), and that would help the residents. Or is the idea that if we spend 20 million dollars on an Art Museum, then Lake Worth will have put so much money into "Virtue Signaling" that our artists can brag to Lantana artists or Riviera Beach artists - that we have a better art culture in our town then they have in theirs? To be honest, this seems like the only thing we might accomplish spending our hard earned 20 million on this ridiculous museum concept....And of course this ignores the issue with parking, it ignores that metered parking in the downtown will injure our merchants....It ignores the indications we have a developer mentality in our Town Government, and commissioners that do not care what our merchants or our residents have asked for.
The town is starting to have delusions of grandeur. What's that big white building? I thought that was an Art Museum. The Street Painting Festival is not Art! It is POP Culture. Just clean the town up. Get rid of the homeless and take care of the things we have somehow managed not to destroy. You could put a new entrance and steps on the poor library. Also, replant the Bougainvillea on the arbor across the street, that has survived countless hurricanes, but no flower can survive the invasion of Iguanas, that never met a flower they didn't want to eat. But we put up with it all, while dreaming impossible dreams of turning Lake Worth into The Versailles of Palm Beach County something it is not and never will be.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. You said what I was thinking.
If you can't be like a museum in a big city like New York, Chicago or even Paris, why even try? There is no in between when it comes to art. Either you need to be like the Louvre or please, stop trying. Be happy with your restaurants and pubs and put away the desire or initiative to be anything more is what probably some of the best cities have said.
Anon@8:37pm.... Lake Worth has a published 2025 population of 44,094 people -- National statistics of Art Museum tourism show less than 5% of a population will attend an Art Museum in year--versus over 50% for a good restaurant...For Lake Worth this means that 2,204 people "Might" visit our Art museum in a year--meaning around 46 people per week might visit--but not necessarily spend any significant money --as the value proposition of the art here, would not equal that of a top Art Museum in NY City--- Versus....in NY City a population of almost 8 million would generate a 5% tourism market-- representing around 396,826 people -- this would mean 8,267 tourists in a week---a number that could keep the Art Museum financially solvent. In other words, the Art Museum idea may work for Virtue Signaling that Lake Worth is more artsy than neighboring towns, but it will fail badly as a business that could pay its own bills, and it would be a catastrophic waste of 20,000 million dollars of Lake Worth taxpayer money--money that the present commissioners have no right to waste in this fashion. It is an easily predictable financial failure, and there is no mandate by the voters of Lake Worth that they want their tax dollars wasted/spent in this manner---and yet--the taxpayer voters HAVE spoken countless times that they DO WANT the city to get the Pool at the Beach replaced with a new one---so this is a voter mandate, and it is one that could have tourism implications , local use implications, and athletic competition event series financial implications like the Fort Lauderdale Aquatic Center --- Our last Quote was under 15 million dollars, the voters of Lake Worth want this, and it could easily be profitable---so what can we say about the government of Lake Worth and how it represents the people?
What about all the artists lost they built not too long ago and they gave away the shuffleboard building whatever happened to all those artists there I've never heard anything about him are they still getting free rent
What about the artist lofts an the shuffleboard Court building that the CRA gave away for the artists whatever happened to all them they still giving them $750 rent
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