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n a go/no-go scenario that had people from coast to coast on the edges of their seats, the Scripps Research Institute project in West Palm Beach, Fla., finally got the go-ahead from Palm Beach County commissioners in late May for the construction of its 103-acre (42-hectare) complex in a former orange grove.
      The flurry of last-minute activity involved a boardroom ultimatum, mysteriously broken air conditioners at a big public meeting and brokering by the highest authorities, including Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Warren Beatty.Warren Beatty?
      Turns out the influential actor/director/power broker sits on the 31-member board of San Diego-based Scripps. As documented by Palm Beach Post reporter Stacey Singer, Beatty was very active in the big Scripps board meeting, at one point exclaiming, "We gave one extension, we gave another, we have won four lawsuits and they still don't do it?"
      A few days later, the county commission did it, by a one-touchdown-shutout unanimous vote of 7-0.

      As biotech meccas go, Mecca Farms has a ways to go to prove itself. But it's not the site's fault.
      Progress on the project has been hampered from the get-go by environmental groups' complaints and lawsuits about the chosen site, even as more than 120 Scripps employees were filtering into the community.
      Nevertheless, nearly half of the more than two dozen permits filed for the 1,920-acre (777-hectare) bioscience village envisioned there since May 2004 have been approved. Most recent were the March 2005 environmental resource plan approvals from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the South Florida Water Management District, which prompted immediate site clearing work. (The tract was officially acquired by the county in December 2004, for $60.5 million.)
      In April 2005, the commissioners approved the issuance of $150.5 million in bonds for the Scripps project, including $137 million for the design and construction of the campus.
      Meanwhile, since March, the company had been occupying temporary digs on the campus of Florida Atlantic University (FAU), where the county paid $12 million for the development of labs. As it happened, FAU played a key role in the final decision with Mecca.
      While everybody seemed to be on hold awaiting lawsuit resolutions, Scripps was at a point where it had to decide whether to go forward with a second complex on the FAU campus — and its comcomitant commitments of public money and employment — or stick to its guns and therefore put the onus on the county to push through the permanent solution.
      As Singer wrote, "County commissioners faced a tough decision Tuesday: Spend $137 million for construction that a judge ultimately could order demolished, or wait until the lawsuits are settled and risk losing Scripps, the project's star tenant."
      That would not have pleased state lawmakers, who had voted to pony up $310 million for the project, only to sit on the sidelines along with Scripps and wait.
      The waiting ended in a hurry at that Tuesday meeting, helped along by the just-broken AC and a sign that said, "No public comment today." An adopted backup plan, should environmentalists prevail in the lawsuits, calls for the land to be sold for residential development, which would allow the county to recoup some of its investment.
      For now though, as construction begins, recuperation is the order of the day.