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Jeff Greene plans waterfront West Palm Beach condo towers
Preliminary plans are for a pair of 30-story buildings with 182 units
Prolific West Palm Beach developer and investor Jeff Greene isn’t done betting on the city.
Billionaire Greene wants to build a pair of 30-story condominium towers on land he owns just west of waterfront Currie Park. His preliminary plans are for 182 units sized from three to six bedrooms, and averaging 3,700 square feet, he told The Real Deal.
The plan marks Greene’s first undertaking on his vast land holdings in West Palm that total 26 acres near or along the Intracoastal Waterway. The project is slated for a 4.5-acre site at 2121 North Flagler Drive. Entities tied to Greene bought the site for $20 million in 2015, according to records.
Greene retained Basel, Switzerland-based architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron, which worked on the Beijing National Stadium built for the 2008 Olympics. Locally, the firm led the design of the 1111 Lincoln Road mixed-use building in Miami Beach and the Pérez Art Museum Miami in downtown Miami.
“If somebody like me does something like this, I am doing it because I want to do something architecturally amazing,” Greene said, “not because I am trying to make the most money.”
Renderings of one of the buildings show floor-to-glass windows and large balconies, which Greene said could span 20 feet. Prices for the luxury units have not yet been set.
Greene’s proposal for condos comes as the hot residential market has been tempered by high borrowing costs. The Federal Reserve has consistently raised interest rates this year to slow inflation. On Wednesday, the Fed imposed another 75-basis-point hike.
But Greene’s bet is on the long-term viability of the market, with plans to launch sales when deals pick up, he said.
“Whether that’s in 12 months or five to 10 years from now, we will see where the economy goes,” Greene said.
He expects to file a project application to the city early next year.
Greene is developing One West Palm in the city’s downtown, with two 30-story towers. One will have 188 apartments, and the other will include 200 hotel keys and 200,000 square feet of office space.
One West Palm is rising just south of the Nora District, a 40-acre area in northern downtown West Palm that is slated for a mixed-use project. Development firms Place Projects, led by Joe Furst, and NDT Development, led by Ned Grace, plan to retrofit some of the aging warehouses along Railroad Avenue into an office and restaurant hub, while allowing for high-rises in the north and south portions of the district.
Nora spans from Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard south to Quadrille Boulevard and from Dixie Highway west to the FEC Railway tracks.
Farther south, the heart of downtown West Palm Beach has morphed into the “Wall Street of the South” due to the influx of financial firms since late 2020. Stephen Ross’ New York-based Related Companies has amassed the biggest Class A office portfolio in downtown West Palm, and has two more towers on tap: One Flagler and 515 Fern.