April 18– Apr. 18–WEST PALM BEACH — Developer Jeff Greene and local dignitaries Wednesday celebrated the groundbreaking of his $300 million One West Palm, a two-tower project promising Class A offices, hotel suites and residences in downtown West Palm Beach, the city's largest project in years.
The ceremony, at the dusty site of a former Coca-Cola bottling plant at 550 Quadrille Blvd., was symbolic, as foundation work began five months ago, after a delay of nearly three years. The Palm Beach billionaire said he expects to hold a topping-off celebration for the 30-story, 426-foot-tall luxury towers in a year.
"I finally got the guts to build this," Greene said, adding that he would use his money rather than construction loans to complete the project. The offices, to be the first built downtown in 10 years, are "about creating more opportunity for others in West Palm Beach," Greene told the gathering, where he, his wife Mei Tze Greene, his mother Barbara and three sons, Malcolm, 9, Brandon, 7 and Cameron, 5, hoisted symbolic shovelfuls of dirt.
"You can only imagine what this is going to do for our city," Mayor Keith James said of the long-awaited project, which won city approvals in January 2016. It will help West Palm compete with regional neighbors in business attraction and will address dire needs for top-tier office space downtown and for jobs for residents of adjacent neighborhoods, James said.
Greene drew heat from city officials for not starting the project sooner.
He said Wednesday he delayed it partly to make sure it could be profitable and partly because the city was altering its zoning in a way that would allow Related Cos. to build a competing 25-story office tower in on Flagler Drive, with superior waterfront views. That zoning change was defeated, then revived several months later, but now faces a court challenge, all allowing Greene to get a jump on Related's project, if that one goes forward.
One West Palm and his other much-anticipated project, a residential development planned on 19 acres he owns next to Currie Park, benefit each other, he said. Growth elsewhere in the city's downtown and North End and in Palm Beach Gardens and Jupiter will all feed the success of One West Palm, he said.
Owning still other apartments in and near downtown has helped him gauge the market, he said, and using big-name architects and interior designers will attract commercial and residential customers from the Northeast and elsewhere he said. The piled glass blocks look of One West Palm was designed by the well-known Miami firm, Arquitectonica and California-based Rockwell Interiors will design the interiors. For his Currie Park project, Greene hired the Swiss firm, Herzog de Meuron, architects of Beijing's Bird's Nest Olympic stadium, Per?z Art Museum Miami and other landmarks.
It's easy for other people to be impatient or second-guess his intent to develop rather than land-bank his properties, he said. But especially since he planned to invest his personal wealth in the project, "I wanted to have a pretty good idea I wouldn't lose money," he said. He concluded that in the worst case it would be hard to lose money on the project and in the best case, it would be very successful.
First to rise will the be the luxury residential tower, which will probably consist of 327 condominiums, he said. While that's underway, the second tower will start, with 200 hotel suites on its lower floors and 209,000 square feet of Class A offices above.
The project includes 14,400 square feet of meeting space with 40-foot ceilings. Other amenities will include a gym, indoor pools and the county's first indoor tennis courts, a spa, shops, movie screen and restaurants.
"Live, work, play, do it all, and that's pretty much what West Palm Beach is all about," Greene said.
