Wall Street South is bringing a bit of Main Street to West Palm Beach with the splashy arrival of a venerable retail brokerage to downtown.
The Edward Jones financial services firm recently opened a new office overlooking the intersection of Clematis Street and Olive Avenue, in the heart of the city’s historic business district.
There’s some symmetry in the move. Edward Jones is a 104-year-old firm, and its new office is in a renovated 90-year-old building at 111 Olive, part of the Banyan & Olive office complex.
But neither the firm nor its new offices are old-fashioned. Instead, both are set up to handle what is expected to be a steady flow of business from wealthy people needing help managing their finances.
Why did Edward Jones set up a showy shop at the corner of Main & Main?
Here are three things to know about the move.
What is Edward Jones?
The St. Louis-based firm, with offices in nearly every county in the United States, provides investment and financial planning services to individuals and small businesses.
At first, the firm focused on building relationships with clients in small towns. It slowly grew to cover about 70% of the country, including offices in Palm Beach County.
Now, with some people holding millions of dollars in assets, Edward Jones decided to rebrand its private client services as Generations services and open a few, stand-alone offices devoted to these services.
Generations caters to people who have $10 million or more in investable assets.
The firm’s decision to pick West Palm Beach over Palm Beach
Palm Beach is the longtime choice for millionaires (and now billionaires) wanting the tropical lifestyle in a state that doesn’t have an income tax.
But Edward Jones’ choice of West Palm Beach, rather than Palm Beach, was deliberate, said John Rahal, a firm principal.
The brokerage wanted to highlight its links to Wall Street South, the name given to the cluster of financial services firms that have opened in West Palm Beach in recent years, especially since the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.
Goldman Sachs, for instance, has an office at the 360 Rosemary office tower in West Palm Beach. Wells Fargo is moving the headquarters of its private wealth management office to the One Flagler office tower in West Palm Beach from St. Louis and New York.
Rahal cited both firms as factors in Edward Jones’ optimism that the new downtown office will thrive in the city’s growing financial environment.
West Palm office to serve Florida, East Coast of U.S.
Clients who meet with advisors in the West Palm Beach office don’t have to be from Palm Beach County or even Florida, although the office is a convenient meeting place for state-based clients, principal Craig Fehr said.
Instead, the office is a base from which clients along the Eastern seaboard can visit their advisors if they want an in-person meeting, said Fehr, who leads Edward Jones Generations.
The appeal of a visit to the West Palm Beach office, especially during the winter months, isn’t lost on Edward Jones’ officials, either.
Other Generations offices are in Dallas, Scottsdale, Arizona, and St. Louis.
Alexandra Clough is a business writer at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at aclough@pbpost.com. X: @acloughpbp. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Why Edward Jones is opening private ‘Generations’ office in West Palm
Reporting by Alexandra Clough, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
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By Alexandra Clough, Palm Beach Post | USA TODAY Network
