Palm Beach County hotel deal scrapped

County officials want the Palm Beach County Commission to end its agreement with Ocean Properties allowing the developer to build a hotel and condominium complex next to the county’s convention center. The county will have to seek an alternative developer if it follows County Administrator Bob Weisman’s recommendation and nixes the agreement at its meeting next Tuesday. It’s been four years since Ocean Properties won the contract to build a hotel for the county’s beleaguered downtown convention center. In May, the Delray Beach-based developer returned to commissioners asking for $10 million more in taxpayer money to build a smaller hotel than originally agreed upon. The Ocean Properties proposal would have reduced the number of rooms in the hotel to 340 from 400.