CS Ventures Buys Palm Beach Properties From Frisbie

CS Ventures picked up a portfolio of the Frisbie Group’s Palm Beach properties just months after redevelopment plans for the sites were scrapped.

Ocean Bank provided a $22 million acquisition loan for CS Ventures’ purchase of the three-story former IberiaBank building at 180 Royal Palm Way, a 20,000-square-foot office and retail property, as well as a 11,300-square-foot retail building at 301 South County Road. The deal also included three adjacent parking lots at 159 and 163 Brazilian Avenue totaling 44,000 square feet.

The purchase price of the deal was not disclosed, but records show Frisbie and partners paid $26 million for the properties in 2021.

Frisbie proposed redeveloping the site with six luxury residences and renovations to two existing buildings. But the plan was withdrawn by the town at a March development review meeting after Palm Beach officials anticipated mounting opposition from residents, the Palm Beach Daily News reported.

At the meeting, Frisbie partner Cody Crowell said Council President Pro Tem Lew Crampton asked that the project be pulled from the agenda because it had “spun out of control.”

The owners included FG Palm Beach Fund, a Frisbie-affiliated entity, along with Eye-Man Limited Partnership and Tau-Mid Partnership LLP, entities tied to ophthalmologist Dr. Stephen Sullivan and his wife, Marcia.

The sale comes months after Frisbie made headlines for another development setback in Palm Beach County.

Boca Raton voters overwhelmingly rejected One Boca, a proposed 1.1 million-square-foot mixed-use redevelopment that Frisbie and David Martin’s Terra planned for the city’s government campus.

The proposal called for a new city hall, community center, police substation, 765 apartments, a 180-key hotel, 120,000 square feet of office space, a grocery store and more than 2,000 parking spaces, along with 182 condos on an adjacent site. Voters in March rejected the plan by a 74 percent margin, prompting city leaders to adopt the “Save Boca” ordinance requiring voter approval before the city can sell or lease more than a half-acre of public land.

Rob Frisbie Jr. and his brother-in-law Cody Crowell stand at the helm of the Palm Beach-based company, which is one of the town’s most active commercial real estate investors, with a portfolio of office, retail and mixed-use properties on the island and in West Palm Beach.

CS Ventures is a partnership between Rosenberg and Spencer Schlager. The Palm Beach-based firm owns 15 office and retail properties across Palm Beach and West Palm Beach and is one of the largest office landlords on Palm Beach Island. The company also owns retail properties on Worth Avenue.