Man’s fatal beating leads to arrest on murder charge
Victim dies after Jan. 8 attack near Greenacres
Costco plans to relocate a distribution facility from West Palm Beach to Port St. Lucie.
The distribution center, at 5851 45th St., will close when the new center opens, said Eric Orren, Costo’s director of real estate. It is one of just 24 regional distribution depots servicing its more than 800 stores.
“We’re looking to relocate our West Palm Beach depot to Port St. Lucie because we’ve maxed out our growth there,” Orren said.
It’s not clear if any workers at the current facility will lose their jobs but Wes McCurry, senior vice president of the Economic Development Council of St. Lucie County, had previously cited a number of the economic impacts the project would bring to the Treasure Coast. Costco has said the new facility would create 265 full-time jobs with an average wage of $55,350 plus benefits. The area’s Economic Development
GREENACRES – A 54-year-old man is facing a murder charge in connection to the beating death of another man this month near Greenacres.
The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office took Rubel Boteo Medrano into custody
Council projects economic impact of construction at nearly $85 million, while the impact of the new jobs is estimated at about $198 million annually.
Port St. Lucie city officials said Costco may also eventually open a warehouse store in the city.
The identity of the company Port St. Lucie had been courting to build on nearly 200 acres in Southern Grove, was finally revealed Monday as the City Council approved a package of tax breaks for what had been known as code-name Project Everest.
Major economic-development projects often remain unnamed during negotiations, as permitted by state law.
The distribution facility is expected to break ground in the next six months and be complete in about a year, according to Jennifer Davis, director of the city Community Redevelopment Agency.
The big reveal
While there had been speculation based on the company’s description, McCurry left no doubt during his presentation to the council. Wednesday on one count of second-degree murder. Investigators say he knocked 38-year-old Ernesto Ruiz Lopez to the ground and kicked him multiple times during an altercation on the morning of Jan. 8 in a community near Greenacres. Their arrest report redacts the community’s name.
Ruiz Lopez, who lived near the site of the fatal beating, died Tuesday of injuries sustained in the attack, the sheriff ’s office said. The county Medical Examiner’s Office ruled the death a homicide caused by complications from blunt force head injuries.
During a hearing Thursday at the Palm Beach County Jail, Circuit Judge Donald Hafele ordered that Boteo Medrano be held without bail. An attorney who represented him in court could not immediately be reached for comment.
According to an arrest report, deputies responded shortly before 11 a.m. Jan. 8 to the Greenacres Plaza shopping center near South Jog and Lake Worth roads after receiving a report regarding a person injured in a battery.
Paramedics took Ruiz Lopez to Wellington
Regional Medical Center, where doctors determined that he had severe head trauma and had him transferred to the trauma intensive-care unit at Delray Medical Center. Deputies learned that Ruiz Lopez and Boteo Medrano had been involved in an altercation at a nearby mobile-home park.
A surveillance video provided by the staff of the mobile home park reportedly showed Ruiz Lopez leaning against a pole when Boteo Medrano punched him