BOYNTON BEACH — A deal that would have used up to $1 million of city cash to buy out a strip club has died.
Instead Platinum Gold will remain at the corner of Federal Highway and Gulfstream Boulevard – or another strip club will replace it.
That also means developers likely will keep thumbing their noses at the vacant 8-acre Gulfstream Mall property right next to Platinum Gold.
City officials on Monday met with Platinum Gold owner Norman Goddard to finalize negotiations, when Goddard announced someone had offered $3.5 million for his business.
“I said, ‘If you got that, you better take it,” Mayor Jerry Taylor said.
Boynton Beach’s Community Redevelopment Agency had wanted to help Thirty-Six Hundred Holdings, which owns the Gulfstream Mall, buy out the strip club for up to $3 million.
In return, the CRA would have had a trolley stop at the corner, which is a gateway for Boynton Beach and Delray Beach, among other benefits.
Jim Knight, of Thirty-Six Hundred Holdings, turned to the city for help after developers refused to consider the Gulfstream Mall site without assurances the strip club would close.
“Clearly I’d want this business out,” said CRA executive director Lisa Bright. The neighboring town of Gulf Stream would like to see it go too.
Platinum Gold has been closed for several weeks. Goddard in September was charged with drug trafficking, keeping a house of ill fame, and deriving support from proceeds of prostitution. He declined to comment for this story.
An April analysis by Strip Club Brokers, which valued Platinum Gold at $3.8 million, said the business is poorly managed and one of the least successful strip clubs in the area. A November 2007 property appraisal by Callaway & Price valued the property at $2 million.
