Residents slow mobile home park’s makeover

The owner of the Suni Sands Mobile Home Park in Jupiter extended from Monday to January 1 the eviction deadline for about 12 residents who remain at the waterfront property.

“I don’t want to put people out on the street. We’re doing our best to work with them,” Charles Modica, the mobile home park’s owner.

Modica, a Hobe Sound resident, bought the 10-acre mobile home park in 2014 for about $17 million.

He plans a Key West-style development there including a hotel, 12 cottages, retail stores and an underground parking facility with spaces for about 400 cars.

Modica has not yet submitted plans for the project to town officials. The plans are pending studies of the project’s archeological and environmental impact.

The mobile home park has about 100 lots, many of them vacant, evidence that a large number of residents already have left.

Modica said he will allow the remaining 12 residents of the Jupiter mobile home park to remain there until April 30 and to get a $1,000 payment to cover moving expenses if they agree in writing not to sue him.

One of the remaining residents, Tom Paquette, a retired electrician, took Modica’s offer and collected the $1,000 payment, and he plans to move no sooner than April 30.

Paquette told the Palm Beach Post: “I’m going to enjoy every last minute of it.” [Palm Beach Post] — Mike Seemuth