Billionaire Charles Cohen proposes 338-foot tall office tower in West Palm

Community Redevelopment Agency to vote on plan Monday

Charles Cohen and a rendering of the project (Getty, Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects)
Charles Cohen and a rendering of the project (Getty, Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects)

Billionaire developer Charles Cohen submitted new plans for a Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects-designed office tower in West Palm Beach.

The plans reveal a proposal for West Palm Point, a 338-foot-tall tower with 23 floors of office space and a 10-floor parking garage, topped with a reflecting pool and landscaped deck. The late César Pelli’s architecture firm, which designed the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and the World Financial Center in New York, would design the 2.4-acre project at Okeechobee Boulevard and South Dixie Highway, according to the Palm Beach Post.

City commissioners will consider Cohen’s plan on Monday at a Community Redevelopment Agency meeting. Cohen, of Cohen Brothers Realty and also a film producer, plans to lease the site from the city for about $1 million a year.

West Palm Beach’s last office tower was completed more than a decade ago, according to the Post.

Cohen has been busy in South Florida. He oversees the largest design center showroom in the region — the Design Center of the Americas in Dania Beach — and opened the high-end Le Meridien Dania Beach hotel in February. He’s planning to build 400,000 square feet of office space at 1815 Griffin Road in Dania Beach and plans to redevelop the Carefree Theater in West Palm.

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Cohen, whose company holds more than 12 million square feet of commercial property nationwide, has remained bullish on the office market despite coronavirus.

Still, in July, Cohen was reportedly a month late in paying the loans behind at least four Manhattan properties, which he blamed on tenants who were late in paying their rent directly to the lenders.

Developer Jeff Greene has been building a two-tower project with an office component in West Palm Beach, though he now seeks a zoning change to build all multifamily.

[Palm Beach Post] — Wade Tyler Millward