DOWNTOWN AT GARDENS MAY GET NEW GYM, GARAGE
Center’s owner seeks OK to build club near Cobb Theater.
PALM BEACH GARDENS — A resortstyle health club could provide a jolt to the sleepy north end of the Downtown at the Gardens outdoor shopping center that’s set to undergo a multimillion-dollar renovation.
ShopCore Properties, which owns and operates Downtown at the Gardens, has asked the cit y for permission to build a 150,000-square-foot Life Time Fitness athletic club and parking garage near the Cobb Theatre and Whole Foods Market. The club would have a spa, bistro, rooftop pool and children’s area.
ShopCore is requesting the city allow a waiver for the parking garage to be 44 feet high and the club to be about 68 feet high, according to city documents.
Life Time hopes to get c it y approval by early next year. Construction will take about a year after that to complete, said Aaron Koehler, the company’s senior director of development.
“Our goal is to be here as quickly as we can be,” Koehler said.
The athletic club no longer plans to develop a three-story athletic center surrounded by apartments and health-oriented shops at the former Loehmann’s Plaza, a proposal flfloated two years ago.
“We were excited about that site. It’s a bit stuck in limbo. Timing is a factor,” Koehler said.
ShopCore is still developing plans for the makeover of Downtown at the Gardens. The overall plan likely won’t get submitted until the Life Time plans are done, Vice President of Development Brian Donley said.
City staffff and the developers reviewed the Life Time plans during a meeting this month. Among the city’s comments on the project’s design:
■ The parking garage isn’t visually appealing enough to be situated at the entry to Downtown at the Gardens from the busy Alternate A1A and Gardens Parkway intersection.
■ The parking garage doesn’t alleviate a parking shortage on the south side of the shopping complex.
■ The proposed location, design and architecture of the Life Time Fitness doesn’t integrate it well with the rest of the outdoor mall.
The Life Time club will create energy on the north end without exacerbating a parking shortage on the south end, said planner Don Hearing.
“By adding a stronger anchor on the north end, we think it will actually help,” Hearing said.
The idea is that people will park in the garage near the Life Time club to use its amenities and then walk to Yard House or Avocado Grill, freeing up parking spots in Downtown at the Gardens’ southern lot, Hearing said.
Palm Beach Gardens Senior Planner Martin Fitts said the project’s current design doesn’t do enough to integrate it with the rest of Downtown at the Gardens.
“It encourages people to go to the garage, get in your car and leave,” he said.
The developers can’t move the parking garage because of Downtown at the Gardens’ leases with other tenants, but they can use landscaping to mask the garage and use other techniques to better incorporate it with the rest of the site, Hearing and attorney Brian Seymour said.
Their goal is to not have the complex look as “homogeneous” as it does today so that it starts to look more like a true downtown, Hearing said.
The LifeTime looks different on purpose, architect Frankie Campione said.
“The trends in retail have changed drastically. We do want to break it up,” he said.