Abacoa is a

community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, ...

Palm Beach County Palm Beach County is a county located in the southeastern part of Florida and lies directly north of Broward County and Miami-Dade County. The county had a population of 1,492,191 as of the 2020 census, making it the third-most populous county ...

in the U.S. state of

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

, within the outer city limits of

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandth t ...

. Construction began in 1997 on land once owned by the American businessman

John D. MacArthur John Donald MacArthur (March 6, 1897 – January 6, 1978) was an American insurance magnate, real estate investor and philanthropist who established the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, benefactor in the MacArthur Fellowships. ...

. The development is an example of the

New Urbanism New Urbanism is an urban design movement which promotes environmentally friendly habits by creating walkable neighbourhoods containing a wide range of housing and job types. It arose in the United States in the early 1980s, and has gradually i ...

architectural movement in Florida.

History

Abacoa was conceived in 1993, when the

MacArthur Foundation The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is a private foundation that makes grants and impact investments to support non-profit organizations in approximately 50 countries around the world. It has an endowment of $7.0 billion and p ...

proposed the plan to the county of Palm Beach, to be executed on land from MacArthur's endowment. The Foundation opted to partner with a developer, maintaining a 35% minority stake in the project. Initial home sales were brisk, with 4,000 of 6,000 units built as of 2009. However, tenancy of retail spaces in Abacoa Town Center were sluggish, with a third of 40-some storefronts, as well as the center's movie theater, shuttered as of 2007. Also noted was residents' displeasure that a number of the open establishments were bars that locals found disruptive. The name derives from that of a village of the

Jaega The Jaega (also Jega, Xega, Jaece, Geiga) were Native Americans living in a chiefdom of the same name, which included the coastal parts of present-day Martin County and northern Palm Beach County, Florida at the time of initial European contac ...

tribe of Native Americans, who were present in the area at the time of Spanish contact.

Culture

Since 2002, Abacoa has hosted the annual ''Fiesta Maya'', based on the traditions of the highland Guatemala town of

Jacaltenango Jacaltenango is a town and municipality situated in the Western Highlands of Guatemala. It is located in a valley surrounded by the Sierra Madre Mountains. Jacaltenango serves as the municipal seat for the surrounding municipality of the same na ...

, with the participation of the local Jacaltec community as well as students from Florida Atlantic University's

Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College The Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College is an academic, residential college of Florida Atlantic University at the John D. MacArthur campus in Jupiter, Florida. The college opened in 1999 and offers a liberal arts education through the platform of a ...

Planning

Abacoa is split into 17 different neighborhoods, each containing its own style of architecture. At peak, management anticipates Abacoa will contain 6,073 residences, and about 3 million square feet of commercial space. Abacoa is also home to

Roger Dean Stadium Roger Dean Stadium (officially known as Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium) is a baseball stadium located in the Abacoa community of the town of Jupiter, Florida. The stadium was built in 1998, holds 6,871 people, and features luxury sky-box seating, t ...

, which is located near the Town Center part of the community, an urban open air street with multiple restaurants. Abacoa is also home to Florida Atlantic University's

, a

Scripps Research Institute Scripps Research, previously known as The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), is a nonprofit American medical research facility that focuses on research and education in the biomedical sciences. Headquartered in San Diego, California, the institu ...

sister facility, and the

Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience The Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience (MPFI), is a research facility located in Jupiter, Florida. Its research focuses on brain function and neural circuits, using techniques to visualize microscopic molecular processes. It is the fir ...

, the Max Planck Society's first non-European research institute.

References

Planned communities in Florida 1997 establishments in Florida Populated places in Palm Beach County, Florida Jupiter, Florida New Urbanism communities {{PalmBeachCountyFL-geo-stub