Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
94 homes, hotel to be built on former West Palm golf course
A new 94-home community will rise atop a former golf course in West Palm Beach.
And a hotel, more homes, and a 20-story condo tower also are planned there.
Two developers are pursuing projects at the defunct President Golf Course — part of ongoing development on land that once featured golf courses.
There’s just no other place to go, said a spokesman for SobelCo, the company building 94 homes in a community called Residences at Banyan Cay. It will be the first new single-family community east of Interstate 95 in West Palm Beach in more than a decade.
“If you want to be east of I-95, you are tearing down something or you are redeveloping a golf course —
there is just no land,” said Tirso San Jose, vice president of residential development for SobelCo.
The site slated for development once housed two 18-hole courses of the President Golf Course: The Eagle Course and The Patriot Course.
The President Golf Course land was first purchased by Banyan Cay Dev LLC in August 2015 for $26 million, along with the common areas, tennis courts and clubhouse, said Domenic Gatto, the company founder. Then SobelCo bought part of the land, 50 acres, from Banyan Cay Dev LLC in March 2017 for $10 million.
The southern course (The Eagle) was transformed into the 130-acre Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Course.
The northernmost course (The Patriot) was approved for redevelopment.
The 94-home community, within Banyan Cay Resort & Golf, will have threeand four-bedroom homes, with prices ranging from the $500,000s to the $700,000s.
Homeowners can choose from five, one- and twostory models. The homes, which will feature a British West Indies architecture, will be constructed in about eight months, San Jose said.
West Palm Beach city spokeswoman Kathleen Walter said the last singlefamily development built in the city east of I-95 was Orchid Lane, a community of 19 homes. Construction for those homes began in 2004.
San Jose said his community will be “gated, guarded,” and he expects to attract empty-nesters and second homeowners, but also “a nice percentage of younger families that would live out east but there’s
[been] nothing new and they’ve been stuck having to purchase out west.”
The land is also zoned for 150 new homes, a hotel and a “soon-to-be” condo tower, Banyan Cay’s Gatto said.
The Residences at Banyan Cay will make up 94 of the 150 homes, and Gatto’s company plans to build estate homes and villas on the rest of the lots.
He said construction started in August for a fourstory Noble House Hotel with 150 rooms, a spa, meeting space and restaurant. That is expected to open during winter 2019, he said.
Plans for a 20-story, 175-unit condo tower will be formally announced soon, he said. The site plans for the condos have not yet been approved by the city.