Related Cos.’ Ross addresses looming growth in downtown W. Palm Beach
At Palm Beach Civic Association luncheon, developer Stephen M. Ross says the pressures and challenges accompanying growth in West Palm Beach are inevitable because “people want to be here.”
Mega-developer, Miami Dolphins owner and seasonal resident Stephen M. Ross said last week that the tidal wave of out-of-state residents and companies moving to Palm Beach County means more development is inevitable, especially in downtown West Palm Beach.
So brace yourself for change, the billionaire founder and chairman of Related Cos. advised when he spoke to a luncheon of about 220 people, sponsored by the Palm Beach Civic Association at The Beach Club.
“The fact is: People want to be here. And they can afford to be here, and this (area) is growing,” Ross said. “You can say: ‘No growth.’ That’s a nice thing to believe in, but it’s happening with or without us. And the question is: How do you take the growth (and) how do you work with it? How do you make it better for everybody else?”
The challenge is to manage that growth with strategic planning, said Ross, whose company has developed commercial, residential and mixed-use projects across the country, including the massive Hudson Yards development in New York City.
Mentioning Florida’s pro-business climate, Ross described Palm Beach County as “probably the most sought-after place (for people) to live and for corporations to grow.”
‘I really believe in change’
Intentionally or not, Ross played a double role on the dais — as a developer who has been instrumental in transforming the look and business climate of downtown West Palm Beach; and as a Palm Beach homeowner who sees firsthand how traffic congestion and infrastructure challenges across the bridges can affect the island.
“Being a resident myself, I see what’s going on in the world and what’s specifically occurring in West Palm Beach,” he said. “And people kind of resist change. But I really believe in change.”
Even so, he said, Palm Beach will remain a remarkable place to live and visit. “Palm Beach without a doubt has been — and is today — the greatest single seasonal community in the world,” he said.
And he was bullish on residential real estate on the island, he said as an aside to the many Palm Beach residents in the audience.
“This is a great, great time. Everybody, I’m sure, today is wealthier because their homes have gone up incredibly in value, and they’ll continue to go up in value,” said Ross, who is one of about 140 directors of the Civic Association.
Ross also acknowledged the “trade parade” that creates traffic headaches in Palm Beach during the morning and late afternoon, as household staff, landscape crews and construction workers make their way on and off the island.
But his main focus wasn’t so much what was happening on the island itself but how Palm Beach officials and residents would react to the feverish redevelopment occurring — and being planned — just over the bridges in downtown West Palm Beach. It’s a subject he knows well, as Related Cos. is said to be downtown’s largest landowner.
In 2000, New York-based Related Cos.’ opened downtown’s CityPlace — today known simply as The Square — as a mixed-use project. More recently, Ross’ powerhouse company has developed 360 Rosemary, a new 20-story office tower; and is building a 364-unit luxury apartment building on the site of the old Macy’s department store at The Square.
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Related Cos. has least three other downtown office towers in the planning stages, among several longer-term projects, including a possible hotel at The Square, the Palm Beach Post has reported.
But the downtown project that has caused the most talk in Palm Beach is the company’s 25-story One Flager tower, which is rising at the foot of the Royal Park Bridge on Lakeview Avenue behind the historic First Church of Christ, Scientist.
Palm Beach residents have worried that traffic generated by One Flagler will cause bottlenecks on Lakeview Avenue and adjacent Okeechobee Boulevard, backing up already-busy traffic on the bridge.
‘We can’t rely on the existing infrastructure’
During the luncheon’s question-and-answer period, real estate agent and longtime resident Dragana Connaughton told Ross she had deep concerns about how One Flagler — and other buildings yet to come — would exacerbate congestion.
“You’re building right over the middle bridge. And what do you think’s going to happen to the island once that gets built?” Connaughton asked Ross. “I just feel you’re compounding the problems we already have.”
Part of the solution, Ross responded, is to “intercept the traffic” before it gets to Palm Beach. Although he didn’t go into specifics, he briefly discussed the idea of building a “pass-over” that would bring drivers into downtown from the west, terminating at Fern Street. The pass-over would provide an alternative to downtown’s main artery, Okeechobee Boulevard, he explained.
“Okeechobee is really the spine that causes all the congestion, the backup both in Palm Beach and all the way out west,” Ross said.
Technology, he added, “will solve a lot of issues,” such as helping automate traffic flow. And he mentioned smaller cars, more electric-powered vehicles and shared-driving programs to alleviate traffic problems.
“There have to be changes. We can’t rely on the existing infrastructure,” Ross said.
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Ross’ talk Monday was structured as a conversation with one of his longtime friends and fellow University of Michigan alumnus, Civic Association Executive Committee Robert Nederlander of the Nederlander theatrical empire.
High school student Alex Smyth of Oxbridge Academy asked Ross about the demand for West Palm Beach office space in a world in which working from home has become commonplace.
“I believe the future of the workforce is in the office — not the home — to start with,” Ross said. “And I think that here we don’t have enough office buildings. If you’re looking for space, they’re virtually 100% occupied. This is where people want to be and work, and corporations are looking to live and work here, because their workforce wants to be here,” Ross said.
County needs more high-quality schools, Ross says
But he noted that West Palm Beach — and Palm Beach County in general — has fallen short in meeting the needs of such transplanted workers, including having enough educational facilities.
He pointed to a lack of high-quality private schools and charter schools, calling it “one of the biggest obstacles to (attracting) corporations here.”
He added: “They really want to be here — but they’re not really comfortable with the schools here.”
Related Cos. and others, he said, have approached private schools in South Florida and the Northeast to demonstrate the demand in Palm Beach County and to convince them to relocate or open satellites. In the same way, efforts are being made to get local schools to expand their facilities or add locations.
“It’s not easy, and it’s not easy finding the land for it. But we are working very closely with a lot of different schools. We’re getting interest, but it’s not something that we can really do overnight,” he said.
The same goes for higher education and health care, he said.
He’s actively supporting an effort, he said, to bring a branch of the University of Florida’s medical school — and an affiliated hospital — to West Palm Beach.
Providing “work-force” housing for new transplants, he said, must also be a priority. He promoted the idea of “mixed-income” developments, “which we’ve done in New York very successfully.”
‘We can either fight it or we can make it better’
At the luncheon, real estate billionaire and private-school entrepreneur Jeff Greene praised Ross and Related Cos. for paving the way for the revitalization underway in downtown West Palm Beach. Greene — who lives in Palm Beach and whose real estate projects include two mixed-use towers on the north end of downtown — said he and other developers stand “on the shoulders of Related.”
Growth, Ross said, is now a fact of life: “We can either fight it or we can make it better. And that’s really what I’m trying to do. But there’s always people who create obstacles and things like that. But I want (this) to be the best-in-class place in the United States.”
To accomplish that goal, he said, leaders in both West Palm Beach and Palm Beach — as well as those in other parts of the county — must “work together compatibly” to come up with solutions, he said.
“Certainly, change and growth create problems,” he said. “Working together, I think we have to solve those problems, as opposed to fighting each other in doing that.”
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Darrell Hofheinz is a USA TODAY Network of Florida journalist who writes about Palm Beach real estate in his weekly “Beyond the Hedges” column. He welcomes tips about real estate news on the island. Email [email protected], call 561-820-3831 or tweet @PBDN_Hofheinz.
