Jehovah’s Witnesses has decided to buy the West Palm Beach Auditorium and adjacent baseball stadium from the city for $12.2 million.
The New York-based religious group will convert the 6,000-seat auditorium into a convention and training center, one of four such complexes it operates in the state.
The deal will keep the auditorium open at least another year, easing the pressure on the county’s efforts to build a new arena.
Jehovah’s Witnesses has agreed to keep the auditorium open until September 1999, as long as the county has a firm deal in place to build a new arena to replace it. If not, the religious group will move in by summer 1998.
“Hopefully, we’ll have something in place before then,” County Commission Chairman Burt Aaronson said. “I’m optimistic.”
Just as important, the purchase allows the county to retain one of its most lucrative off-season gatherings. The Jehovah’s Witnesses has been holding conventions in West Palm Beach for its Florida worshipers for at least 15 years, and each year the county realizes about $6 million in spending.
But the religious group – and the county – worried about the future of those gatherings after hearing that the Palm Beach Jai Alai fronton and the auditorium would be demolished, leaving it no other local venue.
So when a plan by Catalfumo Construction Inc. to build a housing and retail development on the auditorium property collapsed, the Watchtower Bible group decided to buy it, said Gerald Grizzle, convention manager for the group’s corporation, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society.
“It keeps the hotels happy and the restaurants happy,” Grizzle said.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses drew 57,000 people to the area last year during a three-month period.
The group will sell part of the site to retail and housing developments, Deputy City Attorney Bob Sanders said.
As for the new arena, Aaronson has been talking with sporting event manager Joe Casale and sports investor Bruce Frey about their differing plans to build an 8,000to 10,000-seat arena.
