BDT & MSD Partners won rezoning to move ahead with a proposed condo development at the Boca Raton, the sprawling historic resort and club.
Boca Raton’s City Council voted unanimously on the BDT & MSD’s request for a change in land use, allowing the private bank to move forward with its proposed 8-story, 76-unit condo project at 501 East Camino Real. The units will range from two to five bedrooms. BTD & MSD tapped New York-based architecture firm Hart Howarton, led by Jim Tinson, to design the complex. The planned condos will span a 5.2-acre site within the resort, according to planning documents.
The rezoning was one of the final votes taken by Boca Raton’s sitting council. A majority of anti-development candidates won in a landslide vote on March 10 and are set to be sworn in next week.
The original hotel, built in 1926, was designed by celebrated Palm Beach County architect Addison Mizner. Today the resort spans 337 acres, more than 1,000 hotel rooms, 200,000 square feet of meeting space, two 18-hole golf courses, a 32-slip marina, a beach club, tennis and pickleball courts and 20 restaurants, bars and cafes.
BDT & MSD is a merchant bank formed by a merger of Byron Trott’s BDT & Company and Michael Dell’s private investment firm MSD Partners. Dell is the founder of Dell Technologies and has a net worth of $151 billion, Forbes estimates. BDT & MSD bought the resort from Blackstone for $875 million in 2019, and has since invested $75 million in renovating the century-old resort. In 2024, BDT & MSD landed a $1 billion refinancing for the resort, citing a 51 percent increase in revenue per room in a five year period.
Since its merger in 2023, BDT & MSD has invested heavily in the luxury hospitality sector.
The private bank is closing in on a deal to buy two Four Seasons resorts from Host Hotels & Resorts, one in Jackson Hole and one at Disney World in Orlando, for more than $1 billion, Bloomberg reported in January. The firm has lent a total of $160 million to Cain International and Vlad Doronin’s OKO Group for a planned oceanfront condo project in Palm Beach. In 2024, BDT & MSD bought a minority stake in Auberge Resorts Collection, one of the premier luxury hotel portfolios in the world.