Anonymous donor to foot $461,000 bill for updates at two Palm Beach pocket parks

Two Palm Beach pocket parks will receive facelifts, courtesy of an anonymous donor, to the tune of nearly half a million dollars.

The parks at 240 and 247 Park Ave. will receive work estimated at a total of $461,000 to be given to the town by an unnamed person, after the council voted 3-2 with council member Julie Araskog and council President Pro Tem Bobbie Lindsay dissenting to accept the donation and approve the design plans.

The parks sit roughly across the street from each other, with the smaller park on the north side of the street. That lot at 247 Park Ave. is about 0.12 acres. The park on the south side of the street at 240 Park Ave. is about 0.16 acres.

The updated layout of the new parks comes from Nievera Williams Design, whose representative, Cory Meyer, told the council the plants used in the parks' design will be either Florida native or Florida-friendly, with little upkeep and no sprayed pesticides required. The updated landscaping would help to screen the new transformers that will be installed at each park as part of Palm Beach's undergrounding project, Town Engineer Patricia Strayer said.

The discussion about the parks was pulled from the council's consent agenda after Mayor Danielle Moore received a text message from one of the park's neighbors the morning of the meeting.

The neighbor said she did not receive notice of the proposal before the meeting, Moore said.

"It was on the agenda, which is all that is required by our code," Moore said, asking town staff for confirmation of the process.

Because there are no special uses, events or other major changes planned at the parks, that was correct, Public Works Director Paul Brazil said.

"It is just a donation to improve two small parcels," he said, adding later that putting the project on the agenda served as public notice.

The issue did raise a question of how neighbors should be notified about projects on town land moving forward.

"We should let people know that we're going to do something," said council President Maggie Zeidman, serving in her second to last meeting before stepping down from the dais. "This is an incredible donation, $461,000," she added. "So whoever this is, is really being so generous, but I think we ought to correct the procedure here."

Councilwoman Julie Araskog concurred, suggesting the issue be deferred until neighbors were notified and given an opportunity to comment on the plans.

Moore questioned the need for notice to neighbors, asking what the threshhold would be when working on a park: "I don't want everything in this town to be onerous," she said.

A first attempt to approve the proposal failed, with Araskog, Lindsay and Zeidman dissenting.

Araskog then asked to make a motion to approve the proposal, with a condition that all of the owners around each park be notified of the changes. "And if we receive negative feedback, then it will come to us in April," she said.

While Araskog suggested the neighbor's concerns might have been about an increase in noise if the improved parks drew more people, Moore said the concerns shared via text were about notice and drainage.

The project was approved on the second vote with Zeidman now supporting. "But you will come up with a procedure, a process that we need to follow," she told staff.

One park was donated to the town

The lot at 240 Park Ave. was donated to Palm Beach in 2009 by the B. Charles Ames Trust, in exchange for the Town Council at the time forgiving $140,000 in code enforcement fines that were racked up by the park's previous owner.

That previous owner, Thanos Papalexis, owned the property and the building that stood there at the time: an aging, 29-room, three-story apartment building that had fallen into disrepair.

Papalexis, a Greek businessman, was found guilty in September 2009 — a few months after the council approved the donation — of hiring two hitmen to kill a tenant who stood between him and the purchase of a ￡2 million (about $2.5 million) warehouse in London.

More: Prosecution witness in Papalexis trial: 'You cannot call me a liar'

The Ames Trust bought the property out of foreclosure, after an entity used by Papalexis to buy the building failed to repay a $7.8 million mortgage.

In addition to accepting the donation from the trust, the town at the time also approved spending $110,000 to demolish the building, and install irrigation and sod.

Kristina Webb is a reporter for Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at kwebb@pbdailynews.com. Subscribe today to support our journalism.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Anonymous donor to foot bill for updates at 2 Palm Beach pocket parks