TWO 25-STORY TOWERS EYED FOR CITY’S WATERFRONT
The city’s northern waterfront looks to be the next focal point for the post-recession building boom, as mega-yacht boatyard Rybovich and Miami developer Related Group this week announced plans to restart their long-delayed Marina Village project.
Officials of the development team said they hope to break ground early next year on the first two of an eventual six towers along the Lake Worth Lagoon, off North Flagler Drive near
40th Street. The two 25-story towers, designed by vaunted Miami firm Arquitectonica, will house 399 apartments in all, with completion expected by early 2021, they said.
They announced their plans at a public meeting in the marina’s restaurant Wednesday night, amid docks crowded with multimillion-dollar vessels. But as the 75 or so gathered for the event munched on calamari, chips, salsa, guacamole and gourmet pizza slices, Rybovich’s Carlos Vidueira said the plan was “not about making the next super-wealthy enclave,” but a development that contributes to the community and is accessible to it.
Vidueira said he hoped the project would be part of a broader effort of the Purpose-Built Communities nonprofit, an Atlanta-based organization that chooses selected areas around the country to revive through improvements in schools, housing and social services. Various West Palm groups have been trying to attract Purpose-Built to the city.
Related’s Arturo Peña, vice president of development, pointed to artist renderings that show view corridors between the buildings, so people will be able to see the water from Broadway, and waterfront promenades that will be open to the public. An interior, twoway road will keep internal traffic from crowding North Flagler, he said. Just outside the site, the plan calls for a round-about at North Flagler and 45th, to smooth the flow of cars, he added.
The city approved the overall project in 2014, allowing for buildings as high as 30 stories but in the latest plan the height is reduced to 25, though the density is unchanged, the developers said. The project is scheduled to come before the city Planning Board on May 15 and the City Commission, for further approvals, on July 16.
They’re building apartments and not condos, because to obtain financing for condos would require years of pre-sales, further delaying the project.
Rents will range from $2,200-$3,000 for one-bedroom units, which they estimated as the equivalent of $450,000 condos; $2,800$3,800 for two bedrooms, or $650,000; and $4,100$4,500 for three-bedroom units, the equivalent of $900,000 condos. The buildings also will have penthouses that rent at whatever the market will bear.
The buildings will be
“very pet friendly,” Vidueira said. One million dollars worth of public art will adorn the project’s frontage and promenade.
The audience was generally responsive to the presentation, though some worried about traffic and one commented that the 60-foottall parking garages, facing Flagler, would mar the aesthetics of the street. The developers said the Flagler side of the project would be heavily landscaped.
As the buildings rise, one bit of scenery will vanish, or at least move on down the road. Rybovich plans to shift its mega-yacht facility north, to Riviera Beach.