Jeff Greene drops $25M on bulk condo purchase in West Palm

Billionaire Jeff Greene closed on the bulk purchase of the Whitney condo building in West Palm Beach for $24.7 million, property records show.

Greene’s 410 Evernia Street Partners LLC bought 139 units at the Whitney, an eight-story, 210-unit condo building at 410 Evernia Street. Greene, who purchased 129 residential condos and 10 commercial units, financed the deal with a $17 million mortgage from Bank of America.

Greene told The Real Deal the purchase includes about 20 penthouses that were never finished by the developer. He plans to spend up to $40,000 per penthouse, which comes out to about $800,000. “Surrounding this building, there are three brand new buildings,” Greene said, citing All Aboard Florida’s West Palm development and Broadstone at Clematis. “In a way, it’s great that we can customize those penthouses and make them even better than those units in the new buildings.”

The seller is USO Norge Whitney LLC, led by Paul Elliott of New York. Data from Real Capital Analytics shows ABG Sundal Collier sold the units. ABG is an Oslo-based Nordic investment bank, publicly quoted and listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange. The bank paid $24 million for the bulk condos in 2007 in a “troubled situation,” according to RCA. It was completed that same year, but Greene said it was completely rebuilt a few years later after Chinese drywall was discovered.

HFF’s Jaret Turkell and Matt Mitchell brokered the deal. The listing shows the Whitney was being marketed for sale as part of a five-building bulk condo portfolio in Florida. Turkell could not immediately be reached for comment.

The Whitney is one block away from CityPlace in West Palm Beach and two blocks away from Clematis Street. Residential units range from less than 800 square feet to more than 2,100 square feet.

Greene is active in West Palm Beach, where he’s securing approvals for a 12-story, 348-unit micro apartment building on the southeast corner of Banyan Boulevard and Rosemary Avenue. The investor and developer owns more than 75 acres of land in West Palm Beach with plans to build several new high-rises, thousands of residential units, a hotel, a 30-story office building and a raft of retail space. He has already built a new school.