WEST PALM TWO-TOWER PROJECT NEEDS FAA’S OK
So what’s next, West Palm Beach?
For all the talk that Palm Beach billionaire Jeff Greene will sit on his property and never get a major building out of the ground in West Palm, he’s better positioned to build sooner than any of the other deep-pocketed developers around town.
The City Commission on Monday knocked Ken Himmel and Related Cos.’ One Flagler office proposal out of contention. And the city has yet to issue a request for proposals for the “tent site,” a gateway downtown parcel said to interest mega-developer and aesthete Charles Cohen, among other potential bidders.
Greene said he fully intends to build One West Palm, a two-tower, mixeduse development at 550 N. Quadrille Blvd. He has all the city approvals he needs to start but there’s a hitch: He needs to demonstrate to the Federal Aviation Administration that the towers wouldn’t interfere with flight patterns for Palm Beach International Airport.
He hired a consultant a month ago to work through that process.
There are challenges, Greene said. An initial study showed the towers, which would be among the city’s tallest, would be in “an impact area,” an area where planes circle if following visual flight rules under certain circumstances, he said.
The consultant is studying the issue and preparing slides to show airport people at PBIA, in hopes of winning their support, as he seeks to convince the FAA the buildings won’t interfere with flights.
“Once that’s done, we can resume our development,” he said.
But there’s another option. Greene also owns the Opera Place site, a prime, 3.2-acre parcel between the tent site and CityPlace, already entitled to 1 million square feet of development. The site is approved for 350 residen- tial units, 250 hotel rooms, 317,179 square feet of office and 57,710 square feet of retail, such as shops or restaurants.
City Commissioner Paula Ryan, at Monday’s meeting on the proposed Okeechobee Business District, suggested the city should create incentives to encourage Greene, and others who control land in that area, to move forward with projects, as the city desperately needs Class A office space to attract quality employers.
One West Palm needs to show FAA it won’t interfere with flight patterns at PBIA.
Skeptics who’ve been hearing him talk up plans for years may doubt he’ll dig in to the Opera Place project anytime soon.
But he said he’s up for it. “I paid $24 million for it,” Greene said. “It will get built.” Either instead of One West Palm or in addition to it, he said.
“Let’s start making that one happen.”