The Palm Bayer

Palm Bay, FL -- Palm Bay’s real estate market has flipped. Home prices are falling for the first time since the pandemic run-up. Inventory has nearly doubled. National builders are dropping subdivisions across the city like paratroopers, and renters are watching luxury apartments go up while Section 8 waitlists stay closed. The city is adding residents at 3.7% annually, over 152,000 people now, bu...

Palm Bay, FL -- George Santiago founded what would become ROUND13 Boxing at Tony Rosa Community Center in 1978. Nearly half a century later, the club he built is still operating out of the same second-floor recreation room, still coaching kids, and still Brevard's oldest youth boxing program. On March 28, ROUND13 and Boxlite Promotions bring “The New Generation Pro-Am Boxing” to Tony Rosa with 15...

Palm Bay, FL -- Approximately 1,500 golf courses have closed across the United States since 2014. Each one sits on an average of 150 acres of land zoned for recreation or open space. In state after state, a pattern has emerged: an investor buys a struggling course at a discount, lets it deteriorate, then files for rezoning to residential. Academic papers from MIT, Touro Law, and Villanova Law have...

Listen to this article Palm Bay, FL -- Starting March 16, Palm Bay Utilities will temporarily switch its drinking water disinfection from chloramines to free chlorine. The maintenance runs through April 13. The water is safe to drink, cook with, and bathe in. You do not need to boil water or buy bottled water. Two groups do need to pay attention: kidney dialysis patients and anyone with fish tanks...

Palm Bay, FL -- The 8th Annual Strawberry Fest returns to Fred Poppe Regional Park next weekend, March 14-15, with fresh Plant City strawberries, a new cirque act, and monster truck rides. The festival, organized by Buckler Promotions, runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days. If you went in February last year, note the calendar shift. The festival has moved from its traditional mid-February slot to...

Palm Bay, FL -- The Palm Bay Charter Review Commission holds its third meeting of 2026 on Thursday, March 12, beginning at 6:00 P.M. in Council Chambers at City Hall, 120 Malabar Road SE. The agenda covers five charter articles, with the central debate focused on whether to change how the city’s property tax revenue cap works. But the meeting may open with something else entirely: a conduct questi...

Palm Bay, FL -- The city’s free Multicultural Festival returns Saturday, March 7, at Fred Poppe Regional Park. Doors open at 11 a.m. and the event runs through 3 p.m. Admission is free. Parking is available at the park. This is the fifth year the city has hosted the event, which has grown into one of Palm Bay’s most attended community gatherings. Art Show Opens Tonight New for 2026, the festival h...

Palm Bay, FL -- The council meeting on March 5 covered more ground than most. Council declared consensus for an emergency order against a late-night event venue at Turner Square, confronted a bridge project whose estimated cost has tripled since authorization, and heard City Manager Matthew Morton formally preview the retirement of Police Chief Mario Augello . Along the way, the council hired an i...

Palm Bay, FL -- The City of Palm Bay is opening the doors of its South Regional Water Treatment Plant on March 12, 2026, from 5:30 to 6:30 PM. Residents can tour the facility at 250 Osmosis Drive, watch water testing demonstrations, and put questions directly to Utilities Department staff. The event is free and open to the public. The open house is part of the city’s community outreach effort. It...

Palm Bay, FL -- The intersection of San Filippo Drive and Cogan Drive will be closed overnight on multiple dates in March while crews from contractor Cypress Gulf complete utility construction for the Emerald Lake residential development. The first closure window starts this Sunday night. Drivers who travel through that intersection after dark should plan alternate routes now. Detour signage and c...

Palm Bay, FL -- The city’s annual Multicultural Festival has always been a family day at Fred Poppe Regional Park. This year it’s bigger. A new event joins the lineup: the inaugural Palm Bay Multi-Cultural Art Show, running at a separate venue across two days and anchored by a Friday evening opening night with a fashion show, beer and wine, and a DJ. The city is calling in the Brevard Cultural All...

Palm Bay, FL -- This year’s Spring Owl Prowl at Turkey Creek Sanctuary moves to a Friday night for the first time in at least two years. The date change gives a different audience a shot at one of the city’s more popular annual programs, which fills its 30-person limit every year and does not accept walk-ups. * 📅 When: Friday, March 6, 2026, 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM * 📍 Where: Turkey Creek Sanctuary N...

Palm Bay, FL -- The City Council voted 4-0 on both items at Thursday’s special meeting: approving a resolution to preserve the fire assessment option for FY2026-27, and approving a $55,000 settlement to close Councilman Chandler Langevin ‘s federal First Amendment lawsuit. The meeting lasted under an hour. Langevin was absent for both votes. The meeting followed a preview published earlier this we...

Palm Bay, FL -- The City Council meets Thursday, March 5 at 6:00 PM for Regular Meeting 2026-08. The 19-page agenda packet contains the usual mix of proclamations, travel approvals, and routine consent items. It also contains a land use ordinance that the city’s own Planning & Zoning Board voted unanimously to reject, a $146,000 contract for a temporary procurement officer, a multimillion-dollar b...

Palm Bay, FL -- Rogue Valley Microdevices has completed a multimillion-dollar equipment acquisition that brings 300-millimeter wafer manufacturing capability to its 50,000-square-foot Palm Bay microfabrication facility. The deal, coordinated through semiconductor equipment broker Bridge Tronic Global, makes RVM the first pure-play MEMS foundry in the United States capable of fabricating on both 20...

Palm Bay, FL – This morning, in a federal courtroom in Washington, D.C., a judge sentenced Peter John Williams to 87 months in federal prison. Within hours, the U.S. Treasury Department announced sanctions against the Russian company that bought his stolen goods, becoming the first administration in history to invoke a law called the Protecting American Intellectual Property Act against anyone. By...

Palm Bay, FL – The Palm Bay City Council convenes Friday, February 27, 2026, at 6:00 PM in Council Chambers, 120 Malabar Road SE, for Special Council Meeting 2026-07 . Two items are on the agenda. The first is a $55,000 settlement of the federal First Amendment lawsuit filed by Councilman Chandler Langevin against the city he serves on. The second is a procedural vote to preserve a fire services f...

Palm Bay, FL - Get your taste buds ready and bring your dancing shoes. The City of Palm Bay is officially kicking off a highly anticipated monthly block party dubbed “Treats, Beats & Eats” this Friday, February 27, 2026. We covered the initial announcement of this exciting series recently, highlighting its goal to boost local commerce. The only question left is which delicious local food truck you...

Palm Bay, FL – Four separate construction and utility projects will bring temporary lane and road closures to Palm Bay streets starting March 1, 2026. Two of the projects hit the same corridor on the same day. Residents in the SE quadrant and along San Filippo Drive will see the most impact. Here’s what’s coming, where, and when. All four projects were announced via the City of Palm Bay’s eNotific...

Palm Bay, FL — When The Palm Bayer published its October 2025 litigation status update , Palm Bay was an active defendant in five federal lawsuits. Four months later, that number has grown to eleven. Four new lawsuits have been filed. One dismissed case was reinstated by a federal appeals court. One equal pay complaint quietly became a five-count discrimination case. A sanctions hearing is set for...

Palm Bay, FL — Most residents have never read the Land Development Code. That doesn’t mean it hasn’t affected their lives. The LDC determines what gets built next to your house, whether your street can handle the traffic a new subdivision will dump on it, and who gets notified when a developer files a rezoning application for land three blocks away. The City of Palm Bay is now updating that code a...

Palm Bay, FL — City Council voted 3-2 Wednesday night to approve $674,383 in federal Community Development Block Grant funding that includes $37,483 for Catholic Charities homelessness prevention. The split vote followed Councilman Langevin’s lengthy objection citing the organization’s documented involvement in moving migrants across the U.S. border. Langevin researched the issue after previous CD...

Palm Bay, FL – The next Coffee with the City Manager is one week out, and this session has a specific agenda that wasn’t public when we first covered it. City Manager Matthew Morton will be joined by members of the City’s Finance Team for a presentation on how the municipal budget is developed and how funding decisions are made. Finance staff will be available to answer questions directly. It’s fr...

Palm Bay, FL – The federal lawsuit filed by Councilman Chandler Langevin against the City of Palm Bay has been settled. On February 16, 2026, both parties notified Judge Gregory A. Presnell that they had reached an “agreement in principle” and requested a 30-day stay for the City Council to approve the settlement. The following day, the judge dismissed the case without prejudice, cancelled the Feb...

Palm Bay, FL — City Council meets Thursday at 6:00 PM to consider $1.5 million in infrastructure projects, significant changes to development review procedures, and substantial amendments to federal community development funding. The meeting includes decisions on lagoon restoration, stormwater upgrades, and a development ordinance that staff supports but the Planning and Zoning Board opposes. Lago...