Suitor emerges for Palm Beach’s Mecca Farms

The South Florida Water Management District could purchase the troubled Mecca Farms site from Palm Beach County, the Palm Beach Post reported. The county paid $46 million for the 1,900-acre tract in 2004, hoping that it would be the site of a planned Scripps research facility. A judge overturned zoning approvals, however, and Scripps built the project in Jupiter instead. Since then, the county has been renting the land as farmland. Now, the Water Management District is offering a deal involving $30 million and 1,751 acres of land for Mecca Farms, according to a letter of interest sent to Bob Weisman, Palm Beach County administrator, who cautioned that the talks were in their early stages. [Palm Beach Post]