From a single-family home to a 25-story condo on West Palm Beach waterfront? "Outrageous"
A Mediterranean-style estate that has perched on the edge of the Lake Worth Lagoon for 74 years could be replaced by a nearly 300-foot tower of gleaming glass and steel if a developer nicknamed "the condo king" gets his plans approved.
Drawings for a proposed 25-story condominium at 4906 N. Flagler Drive in West Palm Beach were submitted to the city this month by the Related Group of Miami, which bought the property last year for $16 million.
Confined to a 100-foot-wide lot and pinched between the stalwart 1940s-era private Flotilla Club to its south and single-family homes to its north, the developer is asking for the land to be rezoned and for eight construction waivers that include allowing the condominium to grow from the current height limit of 40 feet to 287 feet.
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A spokesperson for Related, whose CEO is prolific developer Jorge Perez, said the company had no comment about the project except to say the plan is to build condominiums. Perez's company is not affiliated with another West Palm Beach development powerhouse, Related Cos., led by Miami Dolphins billionaire owner and Palm Beach resident Stephen Ross.
Some West Palm Beach residents not too keen with plans for property's redevelopment
Some neighbors along North Flagler Drive in the adjacent Northwood Harbor Historic District aren’t comfortable with razing a storied, if notorious, estate for the proposed 46 units. The home at 4906 N. Flagler was previously owned by Wolfgang Von Falkenburg, a longtime Palm Beacher who is infamous for a deathbed wedding to an oil heiress and having two fatal drug overdoses at the estate dubbed The Flagler House.
Pamela Schwind once rented a cottage on the property before buying her 1921 home less than a block from the proposed development. She said a 25-story condominium will clog already narrow roads and rend the fabric of a century-old community where people know each other's names and are willing to lend a hand if needed.
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“This is a neighborhood, we have something special here,” Schwind said about Northwood Harbor. “What they want to do rots my gut. It's just greed and not respecting families and our freedom.”
Although the Northwood Harbor Historic District, which stretches from 45th Street to 59th Street between Flagler and east of Broadway Avenue is protected by preservation rules about whether homes can be demolished or changed, the waterfront is outside the historic district.
That makes it vulnerable, or fertile, to developers who have more leeway in what they can build. The North Flagler area is especially popular because it is one of the few areas in West Palm Beach that has beachfront access to the Lake Worth Lagoon.
“It’s getting out of hand,” said Northwood Harbor homeowner Steve Annabel about the construction on North Flagler. “It’s going to look like Lauderdale-by-the-Sea soon.”
Just south of Northwood Harbor on the water is the recently opened Icon Marina Village luxury apartments, also built by the Miami-based Related Group. The two 24-story towers have 399 units starting at $2,900 a month for a 746-square-foot studio apartment and up to more than $15,900 a month for a 2,694-square-foot penthouse.
“Over a 10- to 20- to 30-year period of time, I would pick South Florida as a place to invest,” Perez said in March after the opening of Icon Marina Village. “The pandemic worried us a little, but long term, we don’t have any worry about South Florida.”
The proposed development at 4906 N. Flagler Drive has just 1.45 acres of land, of which .26 acres are submerged. It is being called Apogee, meaning the highest point, or culmination of something.
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Related could get an additional 2.4 acres if the secretive Flotilla Club is willing to sell. The club, which has been a mainstay on Flagler since the mid-1940s and has resisted multiple unsolicited offers to sell, has a building from 1925 on its property, a scattering of boats, a sand parking lot and a makeshift outside bar where families have gathered for generations.
Tatiana Michalenko, who owns property across the street from the proposed development, said she’s had no notification from Related about their plans for the land. The proposal went before the city’s non-voting Plans and Plats Review Committee on July 13. The committee makes recommendations about how projects can better adhere to city building rules as they move through the approval process.
“Nobody can believe what’s happening,” Michalenko said. “To go from a single-family home to 25 stories is outrageous."
Kimberly Miller is a veteran journalist for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA Today Network of Florida. She covers real estate and how growth affects South Florida's environment. Subscribe to The Dirt for a weekly real estate roundup. If you have news tips, please send them to kmiller@pbpost.com. Help support our local journalism, subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Real Estate: West Palm waterfront condo proposed by Related Group
