‘JUPITER DUNGEON’ A DREAM DEFERRED
Pit next to Burt Reynolds Park is the remnant of a garage for a planned hotel.
JUPITER — In 1988, Jack Piatt bought a half-finished plaza in hopes of redeveloping the waterfront property into something luxurious like a hotel, but the construction was never finished.
Today, the centerpiece of the site, next to Burt Reynolds Park, is an abandoned graffiti-marred concrete structure that some say is haunted. Some residents know it as Piatt Place, but many call it the “Jupiter Dungeon.”
It’s called the dungeon because the remnants of a hotel’s parking garage leads into a dark, hot underground lair. Pictures taken by people who have made the trek show sandy floors littered with rusted beer cans, empty spray paint cans and food wrappers, while the walls are covered with colorful graffiti. In some places, the photos show, there are plants and blossoming flowers.
Located on the side of U.S. 1, there is little indication that this place exists. That’s because over the years, the 5 acres of land have become overrun with bushes and trees.
What’s to come of this land, though, is still unknown. Kate Moretto, Jupi- ter’s director of community relations, said there are no plans “at this time” for the property.
The concrete foundation is fenced off and has several no trespassing signs. “It is also regularly patrolled by police,” Moretto said.
This hasn’t seemed to stop people from visiting.
“Half of the locals know about it and the other half don’t,” said Phillip Benfield, 44, of Jupiter, who has been researching the property out of curiosity, but said he hasn’t visited it. “I definitely want to check it out.”
On social media, there are dozens of photos of people posing in front of the graffiti or people hanging out at the spot. Even YouTubers have traveled to the area in search of ghosts.
Lisa Guima, 23, heard about the dungeon when she attended Jupiter High
School, but didn’t explore it until after she graduated. Guima, who is now a photographer in California, went to
the location in the summer of 2016 with friends to take some pictures. She described the overall experience as “cool, almost surreal.”
“I knew it had a lot of graffifiti artwork, which I am a fan of and just plain curiosity of seeing this place that people have been talking about forever,” said Guima about why she went to the spot. “Just being there can give you a weird vibe, but I personally
didn’t feel anything negative. But, of course, I went around noon.”
Once you fifind the entrance to the underground spot, you are taken into almost a difffffffffffferent world, according to Guima. She was drawn to
the graffiffiffiffiffiffiti and said her favorite discovery was the quote, “Those you’ve known and lost still walk behind you.”
“I really loved that quote ... but I also loved (the site) as a whole,” she said. “It tells the story of the people of Jupiter. It’s their art and sayings.”
What surprised Guima is that it still exists because “J u p i t e r i t s e l f i s a more upper-class neighborhood you woul d n’ t t h i n k ( t h e town) would leave it up even if they had no plans to build something else.”
Like many others, Guima said visiting the “dungeon” is almost a rite of passage f o r re s i dent s . I t ’s a s pot s o me l o c a l s s a y a l mo s t everyone has vi sited just t o ex p l o re o r mayb e d o childi sh stuff.
Despite reports that many teenagers and homeless people hang out there, Kristina Rightler, Jupiter ’s poli c e spokeswoman, said they don’t get calls from residents complaining about the location. There hasn’t been an arrest made at Piatt Place since 2016, she said.
The property wasn’t always t hought t o b e a s pooky, though. Developers saw its beautiful waterfront potential.
It was originally c alled Calle Vieja, which means old street in Spanish, and was supposed to be a plaza with a 154-seat restaurant, 86-seat bar and 23,000 square feet of boutiques, cafes and specialty shops.
“The original structure was pretty much the same thing as Harbourside,” said Benfifield. “But now it’s been abandoned for years.”
In 1986, work on the plaza came to a halt when lender Sunrise Savings & Loan Association stopped paying for const r uc tion. Two years later, the property was sold to Piatt, a Pennsylvania developer who was a winter resident of Palm Beach Gardens. He announced in 1988
plans to resurrect the project and build a hotel. Piatt’s lawyer told The Post in 1991 that
the proposed hotel would be “more exclusive and smaller”
than the nearby Jupiter Hilton. But the hotel was never completed.
Along the way, Piatt faced problems and agreed to dismantle the existing half-built hotel, which was done when it was Calle Vieja, so he could have an extension on his development project.
It was decided by the town that only the concrete foundation of the hotel building and adjacent parking garage could remain. Piatt also agreed to landscape the land on U.S. 1 to “prevent the project from appearing as a partially constructed and abandoned construction si te,” according to a 1991 council memo.
The unfinished work remained that way from 1991 until the town bought the property on July 16, 1999 for $1.85 million. The town left the property alone except to erect fences and put up the no trespassing signs.
While some like Benfifield, wish the town would do something with the property, others like Guima hope it never changes.
“Every now and then it gets mentioned that they are going to demolish it and build something new, but I hope they don’t because it’s a part of Jupiter history,” she said. “Almost every high schooler has gone and done some stupid things. I’m sure that maybe their parents have done the same and so on.”