The first Banyan Dance Festival opens Monday
Plus Urban Roast opens on Datura, the Lake Lytal rebuild takes shape, and a condo reporting gap in Palm Beach County.
The inaugural Banyan Dance Festival runs Aug. 3 through Aug. 8, spread across West Palm Beach. The Natural Movers Foundation and Grounded WPB put it together.
The week goes wider than a run of shows. There are public classes and artist talkbacks. Youth classes are set for ages 9 to 15, with a pre-professional intensive for dancers 16 to 25. Rehearsal observations and artist talkbacks are at Ballet Florida.
Then it spreads out. A silent disco lands in the Nora District. There is a gala at the Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties, and a concert at the Norton Museum of Art. The full schedule is at banyandancefestival.com.
Sewer work squeezes downtown streets all next week
Sanitary sewer rehabilitation closes lanes on South Dixie Highway and South Olive Avenue between Datura and Evernia. That runs Monday, Aug. 3 through Friday, Aug. 7, so it covers the full work week rather than a single day.
Okeechobee Boulevard east of Rosemary loses a lane on Tuesday, Aug. 4, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. That one lands right in the middle of the day.
Sidewalk repairs on Quadrille Plaza Drive bring intermittent closures through Friday, Aug. 7.
Urban Roast is open on Datura
Urban Roast is now open at 201 Datura St.
The hours are the part to write down. It opens at 9 a.m. every day of the week, with no later start on the weekend. Closing time is what moves around. Monday through Wednesday and Sunday it shuts at 10 p.m. Thursday it runs to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday it stays open until 1 a.m.
That makes Friday and Saturday 16-hour days.
A $79 million rebuild is rising at Lake Lytal
Two projects near Kirk Road and Southern Boulevard are on track to open side by side in January. The YMCA is building a $43 million community center and skatepark. The county is building a $36 million aquatic center next to it.
The Y building runs 55,000 square feet over two stories. The skatepark is Olympic style and covers close to 30,000 square feet. On the county side there is a 72-meter competition pool and a 6,200-square-foot zero-depth play area for small kids.
The Y also plans youth educational, career and mental-health counseling, plus a workforce hub with Palm Beach State College.
The downtown shuttle keeps running while the new system gets built
The Downtown Development Authority board approved continuing its limited interim transportation service inside the DDA district.
The city's replacement is an on-demand and fixed-route program, anticipated at the end of August 2026. That is an expectation, not a firm launch date on the calendar.
The useful part is how the handoff works. The interim service ends only when the new system is fully operational. There is no gap built into the plan where downtown loses its ride and waits for the next thing to show up.
17 of 39 municipal building officials in Palm Beach County did not submit 2025 condo inspection data
A July state report found that 17 of 39 municipal building officials in Palm Beach County, or 44 percent, did not submit 2025 milestone inspection data to the state.
Read that carefully. It is a reporting gap, not a finding that 44 percent of condos missed inspections. The report does not name the 17 municipalities, so there is no way to tell from it where West Palm Beach falls.
Statewide, officials reported 8,736 completed phase-one inspections and 1,575 completed phase-two inspections across 2024 and 2025. The report flagged limits in how that data gets collected, and recommended the state give local enforcement agencies more guidance on submitting it.