Cleveland Clinic is planning an outpatient center at one of Steve Ross’ projects in downtown West Palm Beach in addition to a separate new hospital elsewhere in the city.
Cleveland Clinic will lease 120,000 square feet at the 15 CityPlace tower that Ross’ Related Ross plans to develop, according to a Cleveland Clinic news release. It will offer chemotherapy and infusions, a concierge medicine program, imaging, endoscopy and outpatient surgery.
The site will be in addition to the existing 30,000-square-foot Cleveland Clinic Tomsich Health and Medical Center of Palm Beach County. That center, which is at downtown West Palm’s CityPlace Tower, will remain. Related Ross owns this office tower as well.
Separately, Cleveland Clinic plans a hospital with 150 inpatient beds, an emergency department, a medical office building and ambulatory surgery center, the release says. The hospital site hasn’t been disclosed, with the release only allowing that Cleveland Clinic “is in the process of purchasing” the land. The spokesperson also declined to identify the site.
The Palm Beach Post reported that the hospital will be at the Reflections office campus in downtown West Palm. In 2022, Ross, at the time with Related Companies, along with the Ardid family’s Key International and Wexford Real Estate Investors bought the 5.2-acre Reflections at 400 and 450 South Australian Avenue for $35 million.
Led by CEO Tom Mihaljevic, Cleveland Clinic’s expansion adds fuel to the notion that Ross’ hefty bet on West Palm isn’t just a plan to shape the city’s skyline with new towers but also to sculpt its community and future.
In July, Ross stepped back from New York-based Related Companies, which he founded 52 years ago and launched his South Florida-focused Related Ross. Ross, who leads the new company as CEO and chairman, remains nonexecutive chairman and the single largest shareholder at Related Companies.
In South Florida, Related Ross’ biggest playground is West Palm, where the firm has roughly 18 buildings and the mixed-use CityPlace complex collectively spanning nearly 4 million square feet of commercial space and about 1,500 residential units, according to The Real Deal’s analysis of the firm’s projects.
This includes the CityPlace Tower, which Related Companies bought for $175 million in 2021. The company originally co-developed the 18-story building at 525 Okeechobee Boulevard in 2008. Also, the 500,000-square-foot 15 CityPlace is part of a two-building project that includes the 480,000-square-foot 10 CityPlace slated to rise on a portion of CityPlace. Related Companies completed the retail and office complex in 2000.
At public events and in interviews, Ross and his longtime business partner Ken Himmel, president at Related Ross, have often elaborated that West Palm’s growth isn’t just about real estate. It includes a confluence of additions, including educational, health care, philanthropic and others that go into building a community.
“This is more like city-building, and it’s complex and challenging,” Ross told Bloomberg.
The Cleveland Clinic announcement comes on the heels of Palm Beach County commissioners voting to gift developable land to Vanderbilt University for its planned West Palm campus. Ross, who held a fundraiser for the school at his Palm Beach estate in April, also spoke in favor of the university at the commission meeting in October.
In its news release, Cleveland Clinic said it will provide more details once fundraising starts next year.