James and Marta Batmasian want to build an 11-story hotel on a development site at Mizner Plaza in Boca Raton.
The married couple, who are considered the largest private real estate owners in the city, propose a 266-key hotel on 1.7 acres at 132 and 170 Northeast Second Street, according to the Batmasians’ application submitted to the city last month. The project would consist of two buildings, one with 153 rooms, each averaging about 445 square feet; and another with 113 rooms, each averaging 1,300 square feet.
The proposal also is for 32,400 square feet of retail and restaurants on the first and second floors, and two levels of underground parking.
The Batmasians own the development site. They paid $4.2 million for the 170 Northeast Second Street building, now home to a United States Postal Service office, in 2013, according to property records. In 1990, they paid $400,000 for the next-door building, which now is the Mizner Plaza commercial strip.
The Batmasians, whose firm is Boca Raton-based Investments Limited, have painstakingly amassed their Palm Beach County real estate portfolio since the early 1980s when they moved to South Florida. Their strategy largely has been to focus on small acquisitions, sometimes of overlooked properties that they then spruce up.
“You grab real estate any way you could grab it,” James Batmasian told The Real Deal in an interview last year.
While the Batmasians are known as major South Florida benefactors, starting and helming educational and other charities, James Batmasian’s record is blemished by a 2008 guilty plea on charges he evaded payroll taxes and an ensuing eight-month prison sentence. Former President Donal Trump pardoned Batmasian in 2020.
In September, the Batmasians paid $15.5 million for three industrial properties, at 6758 North Military Trail in Riviera Beach, Hopo Center at 1101 53rd Street South in Mangonia Park and Watertower at 801 15th Street in Lake Park, all in Palm Beach County.
That followed their $17 million purchase of the Walmart Neighborhood Market-anchored Palm Trails Plaza at 1101-1149 South Military Trail in Deerfield Beach in August.
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James Batmasian's complicated legacy