2016: Hot weather, hotter real estate deals
It’s fifitting that Palm Beach County’s weather at year’s end is the same as the real estate climate all year long: Hot, and staying warm.
The county saw a number of top- dollar real estate deals in 2016 as investors, businesses and institutions moved to trade or invest in the county’s sizzling market.
Real estate experts say the hangover from the 2007 recession is over in the commercial market. Properties are trading at or near boom-time highs and deals are moving fast. In fact, as the year ended, there seemed to be a rush to wrap up transactions.
Here, in no particular order, are seven of the biggest deals or developments of 2016: Modica in November snapped up the Rustic Inn Crabhouse property for $ 8.3 million, more than doubling his holdings on a section of State Road A1A along the Jupiter Inlet and giving him greater flflexibility to build.
The 3.7-acre Rustic Inn site is just west of Modica’s 2-acre parcel on Love Street. There, Modica wants to build an outdoor marketplace featuring restaurants, offiffices and shops. The $30 million, 50,000-square-foot project has been three years in the making.ing
Mo Modicdica’a’s int intereresest in de devevel-loping prime waterfront land along the Jupiter Inlet has prompted mixed reactions from residents, some of whom fear the city could lose its Old Florida charm.
Modica also owns the 10-acre Suni Sands mobile home park at 961 A1A, east of both Love Street and The Rustic Inn. Modica wants to build a “historic” inn and marketplace there.
The Esperante Corporate Center in West Palm Beach traded hands for the second time in three years, selling in July to a New York fifirm for $125.75 million. The 2013 sales price was just $ 71 million.
RedSky Capital of Brooklyn, N.Y., is the new owner of the 256,100-square-foot trophy building at 222 Lakeview Ave.
The sale reflflected the strong demand and thin supply of Class A offiffice buildings downtown.
The recession slowed Boca Raton’s downtown plans — but they’ve come back to life now.