The future of Palm Beach’s South End may be defined by small-scale, low-density developments instead of larger condominium and co-operative buildings, judging by the praise the Town Council lavished on a project approved during its most recent meeting.
With little hesitation, the Town Council unanimously greenlighted the site plan for a 12-unit Italian villa-style condo redevelopment project to replace the aging Palm Beach Resort & Beach Club on a man-made peninsula in the Intracoastal Waterway. The approval came with a condition that the owner of the property at 3301 S. Ocean Blvd. would work with the town on the plan to regulate construction of the project.
“This is such an architectural marvel — and such an improvement and a model for redevelopment,” Council President Ted Cooney said during the April 15 meeting. “It’s true to the historic character of Palm Beach. It feels like what our town’s founders would have envisaged and did build in our public spaces.”
The peninsula is about a third of a mile south of the bridge that carries traffic to and from Lake Worth Beach.
The property has been owned since 2022 by Copperline Partners, a company headed by the Schlesinger family, for $9.755 million. Headed by developer and real estate investor Richard Schlesinger, the family also owns a majority stake of The Brazilian Court in Midtown.
Council members were smitten by the look and scale of the project and expressed little hesitation in approving the owner’s 14 variance requests to the zoning code. The variances are related to the length of the project, the size of its lawns and the amount of its lot coverage, among other items.
Newly seated Town Council Nicki McDonald noted that she originally was against the project, citing the variance requests. But after examining the project that the variances would allow to be built, she had come around to supporting the development.
The project has elements that Palm Beach residents favor in residential development, she said, including low density and a memorable design that draws from the town’s architectural history.
In fact, council members tacked on to their approval of the variances a caveat: Developers can return to Town Hall staff to approve the originally proposed heights of the project’s two towers — and the variances associated with them — so they can exceed the code’s height thresholds.
But council members requested the property owner seek the approval of the project’s neighbors if the design team decides to revert to the taller towers. The project was designed by the architecture firm Fairfax, Sammons & Partners.
The project for 3031 S. Ocean Blvd. would see the existing two-story condo building replaced by villas ranging in height from three to five stories. Unlike the currently center-aligned building, the new structures would stand on the 600-foot-long strip of land’s south, east and west sides, according to plans.
A private road would run from South Ocean Boulevard through the development, ending at a piazza, the plans show.
Plans also call for the peninsula to be converted to an island by excavating a portion of the land connecting the peninsula to Palm Beach and adding a bridge.
“I think this project sets a high bar for what comes next in the South End,” Mayor Danielle Moore said.
The project is the second major South End-based residential approved by the council within the last year. In November, the council approved an ultra-luxury condominium development to replace the outdated oceanfront Ambassador Hotel & Residences tower as well as an adjacent lakefront co-operative building in the 2700 block of the coastal road. In all, the redevelopment project for the Ambassador site would include three mid-rise buildings with 41 units, down from the 135 units that were previously on the site.
Council Pro-Tem Lew Crampton, who lives on the South End and often speaks on behalf of its residents, lauded the Schlesigner project as another glimpse into the future of the condo-packed area south of Sloan’s Curve.
While the contemporary-style condo buildings designed for the Ambassador-site established one version of how future developments could look, this project “moves things forward at a level never thought of before in what has always seemed to be an (area of) monolithic glass and cement buildings,” he said.
Land-use attorney Maura Ziska, who represented the villa-project developers, confirmed for the Palm Beach Daily News that the as-yet-unnamed development would comprise condos rather than townhouses.
Crampton’s only concern was the development of the construction strategy and the planned use of barges.
Ziska said the barges would likely only be used to deliver heavy machinery and some large materials. But those details, she said, could be addressed with a construction-management agreement.
Not everyone at the meeting supported the project. Allison Brown, a resident of Bellaria, a condo development at 3000 S Ocean Blvd. — the development’s northeastern neighbor — cited Architectural Commission Chair Jeff Smith’s consistent comments that the project was much too large for its site.
She also said that residents of the project’s eastern neighbor, the Palm Beacher at 3030 S Ocean Blvd., had also expressed opposition to the project.
Diego Diaz Lasa is a journalist at the Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at dlasa@pbdailynews.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Palm Beach Town Council lauds design of South End villa-style project
Reporting by Diego Diaz Lasa, Palm Beach Daily News / Palm Beach Daily News
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