A Developer's Dream: Briny Breezes, Florida

"Briny Breezes" is a tiny seaside village close to where we live in Florida. It sits on 43 coveted acres along Route A1A in Palm Beach County, with 600 feet of Atlantic oceanfront and 1,100 feet of Intracoastal Waterway. The village consists of 488 uniformly white mobile homes and carports, some with boat slips, as well as fourteen championship shuffleboard courts, an auditorium, hair salon, post office, recreation center, and swimming pool. The average age of residents is 73.7 years. Film producers have used the setting in such films as, "Folks" (1992), "In Her Shoes" (2005), and "Comedian" (2016).

The place was created "by a strawberry farmer named Ward Miller in the 1930's, who rented individual tracts to trailer-towing travelers for three bucks a week. In 1958 Miller offered his renters an opportunity to own their narrow tracts for $2,000 ($2,500 near the waterfront)." (Quote from Fred Grimm, "Briny Breezes Offered Fantasy About Selling Out to Trump Town," Sun Sentinel, January 5, 2020, pg. 29A).

The village became a town in 1958, as well as a corporation. Property owners became the shareholders. It was difficult for developers to work a deal for the acreage, with so many shareholders expressing opinions and casting votes...

Till 2007, that is. In January of that year the residents voted to sell the town to developers for $510,000,000. Figure it out - each resident would pocket over $1,000,000.

"High season" in Briny Breezes

In April, 2007, Ocean Land Investments of Boca Raton, Florida, optioned for the entire town at that price tag. It proposed the creation of a 349-room luxury hotel and marina, as well as twenty-story condos, all of which would take ten years to construct.

With single-lane (in both directions) drawbridges to the barrier island, this plan would create gridlock. In addition, the infrastructure for A1A's traffic, its sewage, and its water resources would be strained to the breaking point. Police, fire, and ambulance response, not to mention evacuation during storms, would be incomprehensible. Coral reefs offshore would be choked with sewage and beaches would be overdeveloped, while nesting grounds for sea turtles would be destroyed.

Briny's recreation center on Atlantic Ocean

Path to the beach

In May, '07, the newly-formed  Florida Coalition for Preservation held meetings with surrounding neighborhoods, local, state, and national groups, as well as mayors. As a result, the Florida Department of Community Affairs received a record number of community responses and reports from various governmental agencies. The developer's plan was rejected by state and regional authorities and in July of that year, the deal was cancelled by the developer over a dispute regarding a proposed extension by the Briny Board of Directors of the due diligence period. The developer never put up his $5 million guarantee, according to Fred Grimm ("Briny Breezers Offered Fantasy About Selling Out to Trump Town," Sun Sentinel, January 5, 2020, pg. 29A),

Fast forward to December, 2019, when according to the Briny Bugle newsletter, resident and real estate broker James Arena summoned the town population to the auditorium to hear about a possible BILLION-dollar deal to buy out the trailer lots, clearing the way for an oceanfront PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY FOR DONALD TRUMP. Of course, there'd also be a hotel.

Briny Breezes pool

Hobby center

Arena assured the residents the proposal had been run past rapper Vanilla Ice, a semi-famous Palm Beach County resident and phantom friend of Donald Trump, Jr. The day after the proposed windfall was touted, Vanilla Ice himself tweeted, "I don't know Donald Trump, Jr. Don't understand why they said that? But if they want me to build a library in Palm Beach on the ocean, I'm in."

Shuffleboard at Briny Breezes

Resident and broker Arena proposed the name of the town be changed to "Trump Town" for the presidential library that would house - not books - but the President's collection of 12,000 tweets! According to Timothy O'Brien, author of Trump Nation: The Art of Being the Donald, "He doesn't read at all. I'm not overstating things here." This presidential trait, or lack thereof, was also noted by Michael Wolfe, after his months-long access to the White House, in Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House. "He didn't read. He didn't really even skim."

Wheeler-dealers blow smoke. Politicians blow smoke. But those of us living on the barrier island like our air clean and pure.