Jeff Greene pays $13M for run-down site in West Palm

Billionaire Jeff Greene just paid $12.5 million for an 11-acre stretch of land in West Palm Beach, sources told The Real Deal.

The site, at 719 Executive Center Drive, was sold by a Nevada company called WPB Clearlake SPE. It currently houses three dilapidated apartment buildings that were essentially abandoned when their previous owner’s plans to convert them into condos went belly-up years ago.

Greene has yet to announce any plans, though the real estate mogul is currently working on a handful of other developments in the region. He’s developing a pair of mixed-use towers in downtown West Palm and also recently opened a 548-unit apartment community.

Greene bought the land from a Nevada company called WPB Clearlake SPE, which in turn bought the 11 acres out of bankruptcy from an affiliate of residential developer Homes for America Holdings, public records show.

HFAH had first purchased the property in 2005 for $14.5 million with the hope of demolishing its existing buildings and erecting new condos, according to a news release from the developer that year.

Reports say the real estate recession hit soon after and curtailed HFAH’s plans, leaving the buildings to fall into disrepair. West Palm Beach residents had reportedly called the property an eyesore for years, and the city had even gone so far as to declare it a public nuisance.

The company’s affiliate that owned the property, HFAH Clear Lake, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last year and finally sold the property in April.

The sale to Greene was brokered by Matthew Rotolante of Sperry Van Ness Commercial Realty. Linda Worton Jackson of law firm Salazar Jackson closed the sale, according to a news release.

— Sean Stewart-Muniz