Future of West Palm Beach's Sunset Lounge should hinge on facts not personal beefs.
Once an iconic West Palm Beach entertainment venue, the Sunset Lounge is now little more than a shuttered spectacle at the center of a peevish feud that has left the renovated nightspot closed to the public, while costs to the city continue to climb — $20 million and counting when you add the $50,000 a month for utilities, insurance and other fees.
"Pork" would be the typical complaint that comes with unchecked government spending, But, that's not the problem in the case of the lounge's delayed opening. The holdup here is the result of a "beef," a querulous dispute between Mayor Keith James and F. Malcolm Cunningham, the attorney representing Vita, the group of Black business leaders that won the bid two years ago to manage the refurbished lounge and is fighting today to keep it.
Our View on the Sunset Lounge: Editorial: What more will it take to open the Sunset Lounge?
The two men are supposedly trying to reach an agreement with the city's Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) for Vita to operate the lounge but you'd never know it. Once it became clear Palm Beach County Circuit Court Judge Carolyn Bell would again order the city to pay $1.2 million in legal fees to Vita, the mayor announced the city would appeal the ruling. James contends the court dispute will have "no effect" on the management negotiations.
Yeah, right.
Once again, the Post Editorial Board finds itself asking: What will it take to get the Sunset Lounge open? Community interest and historic significance obviously haven't moved the needle. Fortunately, there is still a process in place for the CRA to make a final decision on the lounge, one that should be determined by details of the lounge's viability and not driven by the personal pique of two headstrong community leaders.
Facts not feud should set Sunset Lounge future
Originally dubbed the Sunset Royale, the lounge opened in the late 1920s as a garage and service station with a rooftop garden. By 1936, it had evolved into an upscale nightspot, one of several jazz, rhythm and blues venues in the South that made up the "Chitlin Circuit" where Black citizens could escape whites-only prohibitions and enjoy the likes of Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington, who played the lounge during the height of the Jim Crow era.
Reviving the lounge isn't just a nod to African American culture and local history. A new Sunset Lounge also would serve as a major building block in the revitalization of the Northwest District along Eighth Street just west of Rosemary Avenue. Unfortunately, those opportunities are at an impasse unless two adversaries change their tunes.
The bulk of this beef rests with James. Yes, as mayor, he bears the overall responsibility for making sure that the project is economically feasible and that the city's CRA monies are well spent. James has been, to put it politely, a skeptic that Vita had the experience and resources to manage the lounge. At times, though, that skepticism eroded into a thin-skinned prickliness that left many observers wondering if the mayor would ever approve of a role for Vita in the restoration project.
How bad did it get? When James found out that the Black Chamber of Commerce of Palm Beach County had selected Cunningham to speak at the group's April awards dinner, he ordered the city to withdraw $17,000 in city sponsorship. Cunningham called out the mayor for the 'boycott" during his speech. The city followed up by accusing Cunningham of threatening the mayor with violence, an allegation Cunningham denied.
Cunningham successfully sued the city to keep Vita in the bid process. Now, he and his team must make a credible case to ease any doubts about Vita's ability to operate the Sunset. The burden, like it or not, is on them to craft a realistic budget and other financial projections in the form of a detailed proposal for the CRA's consideration.
It shouldn't take another generation before the venue reopens but, given the bad-blood distraction, West Palm Beach may never see the Sunset Lounge return to any form of glory. The CRA at some point will make a decision, one that should be justified by facts and not a feud.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Facts not feuds key to restoring Sunset Lounge in West Palm Beach.
