Before Steve Ross set his sights on a 1980s waterfront condo in West Palm Beach, Joey Columbo was picking up units in the building with the foresight that a developer would soon come knocking on doors with a buyout offer.
Columbo, a Palm Beach-based investor and broker, identified Southbridge Condominium, a three-story complex at 3915 South Flagler Drive, as a future teardown redevelopment site along West Palm Beach’s coast. Between 2021 and 2023, he acquired eight units for a combined $1.6 million, records show. During the same period, he joined four other partners to buy 19 more units for a combined $4.2 million.
Four years later, Columbo is walking away with a hefty payday after selling his eight units for a combined $6.4 million, and the joint venture selling its 19 condos for a combined $19 million to Related Ross, records show. Since 2024, Ross’ firm has acquired 45 of the 63 condos at Southbridge with the most recent round netting 27 units at an average price of nearly $941,000 per unit for a combined $25.4 million.
Developers like Ross are paying large premiums to avoid the years‑long grind he went through, Columbo said.
“These big developers are ponying up so much because they don’t have the risk appetite or the patience to do what I did, slowly buying them up,” he said. “They’re just offering massive numbers. They’re paying for the premium of not having to wait, and having it done in one fell swoop.”
Spotting Southbridge before the rush
Columbo said he zeroed in on Southbridge in 2021, shortly before the collapse of Champlain Towers South in Surfside triggered a wave of government reforms forcing condo associations to fix older buildings with expensive special assessments. At the same time, deep-pocketed developers are pursuing bulk condo terminations to acquire potential redevelopment sites.
“I was driving over the bridge one day, and I was like, “Wow, that’s the perfect place for a [high-rise] condo,’” Columbo said. “And this was pre‑Surfside collapse. Condo buyouts weren’t as prevalent as I think they are today.”
He paid an average of $202,000 per unit as he quietly amassed condos at Southbridge over a two year period, records show.
“I found a unit on the market, and I bought it,” Columbo said. “And then over the next two years, I ended up with 42 percent of the condominium.”
Completed in 1981, Southbridge sits directly on the Intracoastal, near Mar‑a‑Lago, President Donald Trump’s private club and home. Turning Southbridge into a bulk play meant working multiple purchases spread over months while dealing with a condo board wary of a takeover, Columbo said.
“It was a slow and difficult process because I was picking off one unit owner at a time,” he said. “It was 30‑something individual negotiations and deals over the span of two years.”
Prices kept rising as word spread that someone was trying to corner the building, he said.
“Every deal was challenging from the standpoint that these units weren’t on the market, so it was going up in price,” Columbo said. “Once the board started getting wind of it, obviously they didn’t like it, and they tried to stop it through lots of arbitration.”
Ross steps in — and pays up
As Columbo built his position, he envisioned that he and his partners could redevelop Southbridge themselves.
“I actually brought in my partners with the hopes of it being a Four Seasons,” he said. “They saw the site, and they loved it.”
But then Ross bought 10 units in the complex in 2024.
That meant his joint venture could not move forward with its redevelopment dream, Columbo said. Now, Ross controls the majority of Southbridge, having spent roughly $37 million for 45 units, or about $844,000 per unit on average, according to real estate database Vizzda and other published reports.
Columbo sold his eight solely-owned units to the Ross affiliate at $800,000 apiece, more than triple his average basis. The joint venture sold its units at $1 million each.
Ross has emerged as one of the dominant players in West Palm Beach, with a portfolio of office, residential and mixed‑use projects along the downtown and waterfront corridors. Ross has not publicly disclosed plans for the Southbridge site, though market observers expect a redevelopment to target the upper tier of the luxury market, given the prices paid per unit and the land’s waterfront positioning.
Southbridge sits just outside the urban core in what Columbo calls an increasingly coveted stretch of South Flagler Drive.
“It’s kind of the new gold coast of West Palm. The views are amazing,” he said.