Palm Beach got a glimpse into plans for the former Saks Fifth Avenue building on Worth Avenue, as the owner of the former department store building seeks approvals to move forward with a redevelopment to accommodate multiple stores.
The design of the project must still pass muster with the Architectural Commission.
The Town Council voted unanimously Dec. 10 to approve a zoning-code variance to allow the redevelopment to exceed the overall allowed height of a building in the Worth Avenue commercial district.
But the building, which occupies the west half of The Esplanade at 150 Worth Ave., already exceeds the allowed height, so the council’s vote merely reaffirmed that the proposed work could be accommodated, the town staff said.
The 47-foot tall building will not get any taller, attorney Tim Hanlon told the council. Hanlon, of Alley, Maass, Rogers & Lindsay, represents O’Connor Capital Partners, the New York firm that owns The Esplanade.
Renderings and documents presented to the council show a facade that would be updated with more of a Mediterranean-inspired feel. New storefronts would have more windows and doors, plus architectural elements that are more in line with surrounding buildings on Worth Avenue — arches, awnings, pilasters and a frieze band.
The prominent “living wall” vertical garden on the building’s exterior west-facing side will remain in place, plans show.
Saks closed the Worth Avenue store on April 19, nearly 100 years after opening on the island. It retains a presence in Palm Beach with its Fifth Avenue Club in the White Elephant Palm Beach hotel across town.
O’Connor Capital Partners has not revealed details about potential tenants for the Worth Avenue building. Plans show that the first floor would be divided into a number of smaller businesses. The owners are still working on plans for the second-floor and potential tenants for that space, Hanlon said.
Bill O’Connor, CEO of O’Connor Capital Partners, previously told the Palm Beach Daily News that the former Saks will be redeveloped into luxury retail, office suites and so-called lifestyle offerings.
The updated design was created by Palm Beach-based Fairfax & Sammons Architects.
Council members lauded the plans as more appropriate for the town’s iconic shopping street.
“Your proposed drawings are such an improvement to the (1970s-era) Saks, which of course was a department store with a box, so it doesn’t engage the street,” said Council Member Ted Cooney, a former chairman of the town’s Landmarks Preservation Commission and a former alternate member of the Architectural Commission.
Jaime Torres-Cruz, an architect with Fairfax & Sammons, told the council that the project only includes the part of The Esplanade where Saks was located, because that is the only space that “needs to be repurposed now.”
“That is the part that is aesthetically different than the rest,” Torres-Cruz said. “The rest is more Mediterranean on the street than this portion.”
The owners of the adjacent Colony Hotel want the council to ensure that the landmark lodging maintains its access to a service alley that runs between The Colony and The Esplanade, said Jamie Gavigan, an attorney with Shutts & Bowen, who represented the hotel at the meeting.
The hotel wants to make sure that any future tenant that faces the service alley as part of redevelopment of the former Saks space will not object to the hotel using its service alley, Gavigan said.
“They’ve used that service alley for deliveries, etc., for the last century,” he said.
There are two service alleys that run parallel to each other between the structures, both with gated access to South County Road, Cooney noted. The gate to The Colony’s service road is solid, while a metal picket-style gate provides access to The Esplanade’s alley. Cooney proposed that the owners of The Esplanade could design a similar solid gate to the one used by The Colony.
The Esplanade’s owners are proposing a “substantial upgrade” to the area near the alley, but not in the service alley itself, Hanlon said. O’Connor Capital Partners did agree to design a solid gate for the alley as a condition of the council’s approval of the variance.
The design was scheduled to be presented tothe Architectural Commission for review at its Dec. 19 meeting. Although the commission typically meets on the last Wednesday of the month, the December meeting ws moved up to avoid a conflict with New Year’s Eve.
The architect Richard Sammons, principal of Fairfax & Sammons Architects, is vice chair of the Architectural Commission.
Renovation work in Saks’ former Palm Beach home has been underway since the summer, as crews stripped the interior of fixtures and removed other remnants of the luxury retailer’s decades-long footprint on Worth Avenue.
Saks in November announced it would close nine of its Saks Off 5th stores in Texas, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., and Connecticut.
Kristina Webb is a reporter for Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at kwebb@pbdailynews.com. Subscribe today to support our journalism.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Plans show details for former Saks space on Worth Avenue in Palm Beach
Reporting by Kristina Webb, Palm Beach Daily News / Palm Beach Daily News
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