How Palm Beach Gardens is growing: Ice rink plan for city park upsets those who play there

PALM BEACH GARDENS — Plant Drive Park is where Bert Premuroso met his wife, where Danielle Osborne’s 4-year-old son got his first taste of skateboarding and where Adam Cranmer taught his sons to ride BMX bikes.

For decades, the 8-acre site behind Palm Beach Gardens High School has been where family memories were made. Now its skate park, basketball courts and softball field are slated for demolition to make way for a $40 million ice rink complex. The City Council approved the project April 4.

Cranmer said he will try to put a stop to it. He started an online petition drive and says it has garnered more than 2,300 signatures. Supporters say they plan to speak out against the project when the City Council meets May 2.

“It would be nice to keep the soul of the city,” said Cranmer, 42, an eight-year Palm Beach Gardens resident. The ice rink complex "can’t be an added value to the community if they are taking something else away.”Premuroso, now a council member who voted in favor of the rink, said he doesn’t think the council can nullify its decision. The project, however, risks cancellation if its sponsor, the Palm Beach North Athletic Foundation, fails to meet six- and 15-month funding requirements.

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Plant Drive Park has been a family destination for decades

Plant Drive Park is one of the city’s oldest parks and sits in one of its oldest neighborhoods, filled with smaller homes dating to the 1960s. Its softball field is the home field for the high school's softball team and it's named for Amanda Buckley, the Palm Beach Gardens High Gators standout who was murdered in 2007.

A city report, however, said that in recent years, the park has become a "marginal" recreation site that has had problems with vandalism.

Premuroso called the park the city’s “main attraction” when he was a kid. He grew up a short walk away and played baseball there after school in the 1970s. He even bought the house next to his parents after college.

He said his vote of approval was difficult.

“It wasn’t easy for me to let go of a park that I grew up on and where I met my wife,” Premuroso said. “I just think it’s time to redo what’s there and offer something different to residents.”

The project calls for the foundation to build a 100,000-square-foot building with two full-sized rinks. It would house sports such as youth hockey, figure skating and curling that have few other sites in Palm Beach County. NHL great Wayne Gretzky, a north county homeowner, plans to use the new rinks to host his Gretzky Hockey School.

The foundation would pay for its construction and share revenue with the city over the next 40 years.

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Rink project may leave neighborhood families with fewer places to play

There are two other city recreation areas within half a mile of Plant Drive Park — Lilac Park just to the north and Gardens Park along Burns Road — but some residents still wonder whether a rink is right for their neighborhood.

Erica Wallace is a former teacher at Watson B. Duncan Middle School who said she has lived near the park for eight years. She doesn’t think area families could afford to play hockey, given its equipment costs. Wallace said she has cooked meals and paid water bills for some of them.

"Everyone thinks Palm Beach Gardens is an affluent area, but there are plenty of families who are struggling to put food on the table,” Wallace said. “Let's not burden the families (and) take away free activities from kids.”

Wallace wants the rinks built at The Gardens North County District Park instead, as the city once discussed. However, the city leases the park from Palm Beach County, and a city spokesperson said the ice rinks as proposed would not meet the lease's requirements.

Palm Beach Gardens still deciding whether to replace skate park

Some aspects of Plant Drive Park will find new homes after the rink is built. Palm Beach Gardens is discussing ways "to make things whole" with the Amanda Buckley memorial. Others are unresolved, such as the skate park, the only one in the city. It cannot be moved, and the city said it has not yet decided to build a new one elsewhere.

Danielle Osborne knows at least one person upset by that change. She said her 4-year-old son broke into sobs in his elbow pads and helmet and cried, “I don’t want anybody to take away the skate park!”

Jordan Poteet lives in a duplex across the street from Plant Drive Park with his two young daughters. When he was a kid in rural Oklahoma, he petitioned for a decade to get a skate park near him.

“I would have given anything as a kid to have a skate park this nice,” said Poteet, now 41.

Tom Kern, 61, said he has been playing basketball at Plant Drive Park for 34 years. He said he can drive to other parks when the courts are demolished, but many of his neighbors work multiple jobs and won't have the time.

He thinks the rink will increase property values of homes nearby, which could lead their current owners to sell, bringing those with higher incomes to the neighborhood.

“This is going in an elitist direction, and I feel like the city has been heading that way,” Kern said. “It's difficult for working-class people in this area to start with, let alone take away the few amenities that we can enjoy.”

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Maya Washburn covers northern Palm Beach County for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida-Network. Reach her at mwashburn@pbpost.com. Support local journalism: Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Palm Beach Gardens news: Ice rink plan has some residents upset