Vista Residential Nabs Approval for Palm Beach Gardens Rentals

Vista Residential Partners scored approval for a 221-unit apartment building with workforce housing in Palm Beach Gardens.

Atlanta-based Vista Residential plans the four-story project, called Gardens Vista Apartments, at 12450 Central Boulevard, according to city records. The 16.7-acre vacant site is part of the larger Cimarron Cove master-planned development.

Gardens Vista Apartments will consist of 131 one-bedroom, 72 two-bedroom and 18 three-bedroom apartments, a Vista Residential news release says. The development will include over an acre of amenities such as a pair of pickleball courts, a dog park and walking trails, according to Palm Beach Gardens records.

Gardens Vista will include 22 workforce-priced apartments. A Vista Residential representative declined to provide details on pricing for these units, but city records show that the workforce rentals will be for households earning no more than 120 percent of the area median income.

Palm Beach County’s annual AMI for all households is $104,000, the Florida Housing Finance Corporation shows. To qualify for a unit reserved for those earning up to 120 percent of the AMI, a one-person household can’t earn over $90,000 annually; a two-person household can’t earn over $102,840; and a three-person household can’t earn over $115,680, FHFC data shows.

The City Council approved Gardens Vista on April 4.

Construction is slated to start in December, and completion of the first units is expected next year, according to a Vista Residential representative.

Records show Vista Residential paid $15 million for the Gardens Vista development site in 2022.

The 50.6-acre Cimarron Cove planned community development on the southeast corner of Central Boulevard and Victoria Falls Boulevard has been in the works since at least 2006, according to Palm Beach Gardens records. Originally planned as a three-parcel development, Cimarron Cove eventually was condensed into a two-parcel project.

In 2015, the 341-unit Quaye Palm Beach Gardens apartment complex was completed on Parcel B at 10000 South Gardens Drive. PGIM Real Estate bought the complex in 2017 for $118.4 million from the development entity, South Gardens LLC, led by Charles B. Funk, according to records.

Gardens Vista, which would rise on Parcel A of Cimarron Cove, marks the second and final portion of the master-planned development. Parcel A previously was slated for a 215,000-square-foot commercial development, including offices, according to city records. Aside from site-plan approval, Vista Residential also scored a rezoning of its parcel on April 4.

Vista Residential is led by Eduardo de Guardiola, who founded the firm in 2000, according to the company’s website. It has roughly $2 billion of assets under management, as well as a development pipeline of 5,500 units nationwide, the website and the firm’s news release say.

Palm Beach Gardens is poised to get a healthy pipeline of residential units. Catalfumo Companies and The Richman Group of Companies plan the 1,016-unit Gardens Station apartment project. The pair are developing the 396-unit portion of the project at 11025 RCA Center Drive, and they scored approval in February for the remaining 620 apartments.

In January, Delray Beach-based Kolter Group dropped $73.6 million for 491 homesites on 150 acres on the northwest corner of the Avenir master-planned community in Palm Beach Gardens.