largest - News - The Coastal Star2024-03-28T22:45:19Zhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/largestAlong the Coast: Palm Beach County chapter celebrates being largest of League of Women Votershttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/along-the-coast-palm-beach-county-chapter-celebrates-being-larges2021-03-03T15:05:28.000Z2021-03-03T15:05:28.000ZMary Kate Leminghttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/MaryKateLeming769<div><p><strong>By Ron Hayes</strong></p>
<p>When the League of Women Voters was founded in Chicago on Valentine’s Day 1920, women couldn’t vote.<br /> Six more months would have to pass before the U.S. Constitution caught up with them.<br /> Last year, both the 19th Amendment and the league marked its centenary, and this year began with the Palm Beach County chapter celebrating its distinction as the largest of the league’s more than 750 chapters.<br /> “I can confirm that as of January 2021, the League of Women Voters of Palm Beach County currently has the largest membership of any league in the country,” reports Sarah Courtney of the nonprofit organization’s national office in Washington, D.C.<br /> “Our largest leagues by membership are geographically diverse and include St. Louis, Missouri; Austin, Texas; Cleveland, Ohio; San Diego, California; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.”<br /> She declined to provide membership numbers for other chapters. But after competing with California chapters off and on for years, Palm Beach County has pulled ahead.<br /> “It’s a moving target,” says Darlene Kostrub, the county’s membership director, “but at this moment we have 662 Palm Beach County members.”<br /> Originally, the league admitted only women, in line with its initial mission to educate those newly enfranchised voters, but that policy was changed in 1973, two years before the Palm Beach County chapter was founded.<br /> “Today, I’d say about 15-20 percent of our members are male,” Kostrub says.<br /> The county’s league is one of 29 state chapters from the Panhandle to the Keys.<br /> “It’s a great honor that our state is home to the largest local League of Women Voters in the nation,” said Patricia Bingham, the state board president. “We commend the leaders of Palm Beach for their phenomenal recruitment and retention work.”<br /> Local league President Ken Thomas attributes the chapter’s growth in part to its work attracting younger members.<br /> “We have a very active committee called the Young Leaguers who reach out to circles that aren’t our traditional demographic,” he said.<br /> During last year’s Black Lives Matter demonstrations in West Palm Beach, for example, league members registering new voters were also able to add members by highlighting a new outreach that offers free membership to students between 16 and 26.<br /> “A lot of these people who were peacefully protesting were interested in civic engagement and saw the league as a legacy organization with a history of doing this work,” Thomas said.<br /> Kostrub, the membership director, estimates about 60 local members are students, some still in high school, but most are college students.<br /> Another factor in the league’s healthy growth, Thomas said, is its commitment to remaining resolutely nonpartisan.<br /> “People say we don’t endorse candidates,” he said, “but I like to reinforce that we don’t oppose any candidates, either. We don’t endorse or oppose.”<br /> On Feb. 11, the league hosted its first virtual candidates forum, with an audience watching by Zoom as Delray Beach City Commission candidates discussed the issues at St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church.<br /> When the league realized not all the candidates could sit socially distanced on the chancel, seating for all was moved to the floor level to avoid any perception of favoritism by having them seated on two levels.<br /> “We don’t only say we’re nonpartisan,” Thomas said, “we actively strive to appear nonpartisan in the way we conduct ourselves.”<br /> While the league is nonpartisan, however, it is not apolitical. Statewide, it has vigorously fought for and against political policies. In 2019, state league chapters went to court to fight Senate Bill 7066, which would require ex-felons to pay off all financial obligations before they could vote, and last year, working with the ACLU, Florida members contacted more than 100,000 former felons to encourage them to register and vote.<br /> Locally, the chapter’s website touts its commitment to reproductive rights, gun safety and immigration reform.<br /> But regardless of any candidate’s position on controversial issues, all are invited to participate in the forums, and in Palm Beach County, the results are clearly effective.<br /> “Our goal is to have 700 members,” Kostrub said. </p></div>Boca Raton: Boca Raton Resort & Club’s final sales price nearly $900 millionhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/boca-raton-boca-raton-resort-club-s-final-sales-price-nearly-900-2019-07-03T14:00:00.000Z2019-07-03T14:00:00.000ZMary Kate Leminghttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/MaryKateLeming769<div><p class="p1" style="text-align:center;"><em><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960873876,original{{/staticFileLink}}" target="_blank"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960873876,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" alt="7960873876?profile=original" /></a>Billionaire Michael S. Dell acquired the Boca Raton Resort & Club, which will continue to be managed by Hilton under the Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts brand. <b>Photo provided</b></em></p>
<p class="p1"></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1"><b>By Mary Hladky</b></span></p>
<p class="p3">In the largest property deal in Palm Beach County history, billionaire Michael S. Dell has acquired the Boca Raton Resort & Club for nearly $900 million.</p>
<p class="p3">MSD Partners, Dell’s investment advisory firm, announced an agreement to buy the club from Blackstone Group on April 22. While the company did not disclose a sale price, deeds made public two days after the deal closed on June 4 totaled $461.6 million.</p>
<p class="p3">But a June 11 Fitch Ratings report pegged the purchase price at far more than that.</p>
<p class="p3">MSD Partners acquired the resort for $589.7 million, including furniture, fixtures and equipment. The company also paid $285.3 million for the resort’s Premier Club, whose 11,000 members have access to all the resort’s facilities and to the Boca Country Club, an extension of the resort located along Congress Avenue north of Clint Moore Road.</p>
<p class="p3">The total is $875 million, not including $22.9 million set aside for reserves and to pay closing costs.</p>
<p class="p3">The transaction was financed with a $600 million loan from Goldman Sachs and nearly $300 million of buyer equity, according to the Fitch report.</p>
<p class="p3">The sales price far eclipses the county’s previous top property deal: the 2014 sale of the Mall at Wellington Green for $341.1 million.</p>
<p class="p3">“The purchase of the Resort & Club for a strong price by an experienced operator, MSD Partners, is another sign of Boca Raton’s huge attractiveness as a place for investment,” Mayor Scott Singer said in an email. “MSD has invested great sums in other historic properties to enhance their traditional appeal and we look forward to their continued success in Boca Raton with this world-renowned asset.”</p>
<p class="p3">The resort will continue to be managed by Hilton under the Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts brand.</p>
<p class="p3">John Tolbert, the resort’s president and managing director, was not available after the closing for comment on MSD Partners’ plans for the resort.</p>
<p class="p3">But the Fitch report says that MSD Partners plans to invest $75 million over the first four years of the loan term. Improvements, still in the planning stages, will include room renovations and upgrades of public spaces and amenity packages.</p>
<p class="p3">Fitch assigned the resort a property quality grade of A-minus. It described the resort as well maintained, saying the spa and rooms in The Cloister are in “excellent condition.”</p>
<p class="p3">But the resort’s room revenues underperform those of its competitors, including Eau Palm Beach Resort in Manalapan, The Breakers in Palm Beach and PGA National Resort in Palm Beach Gardens.</p>
<p class="p3">About 60 percent of the resort’s demand in 2018 came from meeting and group business, compared to 49 percent for the overall hotel market. Meeting and group bookings are at lower rates than leisure bookings.</p>
<p class="p3">That brought down overall room revenue. But the resort’s total revenue per available room in April was $620, “which is considered strong,” the report said.</p>
<p class="p3">An affiliate of Blackstone, a New York-based private equity firm, acquired the 337-acre resort in 2004 and invested more than $300 million in the property.</p>
<p class="p3">MSD Partners, based in New York with additional offices in Santa Monica and West Palm Beach, said in its April announcement that the purchase is “a natural extension of our portfolio of luxury hotels and resorts.”</p>
<p class="p3">Its real estate investments include the luxury Four Seasons Maui, Four Seasons Hualalai and Fairmont Miramar Hotel & Bungalows in Santa Monica.</p>
<p class="p3">The Boca Raton Resort & Club dates to 1926, when architect Addison Mizner opened the Cloister Inn on the shore of Lake Boca Raton.</p>
<p class="p3">It has since grown to 1,047 hotel rooms, two 18-hole golf courses, a 50,000-square-foot spa, seven swimming pools, 30 tennis courts, a 32-slip marina, 13 restaurants and bars and 200,000 square feet of meeting space.</p>
<p class="p3">Dell, chairman and CEO of Dell Technologies, is ranked by Forbes as the 25th-richest person in the world with a net worth of $35.4 billion as of June. He launched Dell Computer Corp. in 1984 and began selling personal computers online in 1996.</p>
<p class="p3">He founded MSD Capital in 1988 to manage his investments. MSD Partners was formed in 2009 to be an investment adviser using MSD Capital’s investment strategies. </p></div>