BDT & MSD Partners proposes a 60-unit condominium at Boca Raton Resort & Club, amid a development frenzy for luxury projects in South Florida.
The merchant bank, which has offices in New York and Chicago, wants to build an eight-story building with a 142-space underground garage on a nearly 4-acre site at the resort at 501 East Camino Real, according to an application filed to the city.
BDT & MSD is seeking approval for a city code amendment that would allow for the building’s 100-foot height in a zoning district that limits heights to 85 feet. Buildings near Boca Raton Resort are 130 feet tall, and the Tower, one of five hotels at the resort, is over 130 feet, the developer’s application shows.
The 337-acre Boca Raton Resort has 1,047 keys across the Tower, bungalows, a Yacht Club and a Beach Club, as well as the original Cloister hotel developed in 1926. The Cloister was designed by late architect Addison Mizner, known for his Mediterranean Revival and Spanish Colonial Revival buildings in South Florida and as the primary architect of Boca Raton.
Boca Raton Resort also is home to a 50,000-square-foot spa, 32-slip marina, 30 tennis courts, pickleball courts, 13 restaurants, golf courses, swimming pools and more than 200,000 square feet of meeting space.
MSD Partners, the investment manager for Dell Technologies founder Michael Dell and his family, bought the resort in 2019 for $875 million from Blackstone. The resort is now owned by BDT & MSD following the 2023 merger of MSD with merchant bank BDT & Company.
BDT & MSD is led by co-CEOs Byron Trott, who founded BDT & Company, and Gregg Lemkau, who also is chairman of Dell’s family investment office DFO Management.
In August, BDT & MSD landed a $1 billion refinancing for Boca Raton Resort that replaced a $900 million loan on the property, paid off closing costs and put money in reserves, according to Fitch Ratings. BDT & MSD received $64.4 million in return equity.
Over the past two years, BDT & MSD has been an active financier and investor. It held the $285 million loan on the Waldorf Astoria Washington DC, which is the former Trump International Hotel in the Old Post Office building, obtaining the building’s leasehold in August through foreclosure. The borrower, Raoul Thomas’ Miami-based CGI Merchant, had bought the hotel in 2022 for $375 million from the Trump Organization, which is now considering a business deal on the property such as a licensing deal or buying back the lease.
This month, BDT & MSD also provided a $150 million refinancing for Steve Ross’ convention center hotel at 600 Okeechobee Boulevard in downtown West Palm Beach.
The proposal for a condo at Boca Raton Resort is BDT & MSD’s first known development in South Florida, coming amid a wave of luxury residential projects in the tri-county region.
Many of the projects are branded. In Miami’s Coconut Grove, David Martin’s Terra launched sales this month of a 194-unit, Well-branded condo at 2835 Tigertail Avenue, with pricing starting at $1.5 million. Terra also is partnering with One Thousand Group on the 56-story, Major Food Group-branded Villa Miami with 70 condos at 710 Northeast 29th Street in Miami’s Edgewater.
Also this month, Fort Partners scored a $107.6 million construction loan for the 11-story oceanfront Seaway North at The Surf Club with nine units at 9165 Collins Avenue in Surfside.
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