The 24-unit, nine-story luxury condo will be built at 327 E. Royal Palm Road.
Rendering provided
By Mary Hladky
While two recent downtown Boca Raton development projects garnered impassioned opposition, the 24-unit 327 Royal Palm condominium has sailed to quick city approval and the developer expects to break ground later this year.
The City Council, sitting as Community Redevelopment Agency commissioners, approved the nine-story project in a 5-0 vote on Aug. 10 after only one city resident spoke against it, citing traffic concerns.
The luxury condos at 327 E. Royal Palm Road are priced at $1.6 million to $2.9 million and will average about 3,500 square feet. The uncomplicated city blessing comes in the wake of controversy over the proposed Sol-A-Mar luxury condo on nine acres along Southeast Mizner Boulevard that would have four 13-story and three four-story buildings, and the Chabad of East Boca’s 18,000-square-foot synagogue on East Palmetto Park Road.
In both cases, the buildings would exceed the city’s height limits in the downtown area. But 327 Royal Palm’s height — just under 117 feet including architectural elements — falls within what the city allows and its relatively small number of units does not stir complaints about density.
“We are trying to play by the rules,” said Ignacio Diaz, general manager of developer Group P6. “We were not seeking anything unusual.”
Diaz was so confident that the project would win approval that he began selling pre-construction units in January, with the provision that buyers would get their 10 percent down payment back if the city did not give the OK. Half of the units are pre-sold.
“We were pretty confident we would get through the process. I didn’t feel uncomfortable doing that,” Diaz said, adding that he didn’t want to miss out on the winter season.
The buyers, he said, are “entirely local,” generally empty nesters with large homes in the area who want to downsize and live in an urban environment.
Diaz’s father and other family members are developers in Venezuela. One of their current projects, expected to be completed next year, is Parque Industrial del Este, a 2.15 million-square-foot industrial park in Caracas.
But Group P6 is not interested in Miami-Dade County and its large Venezuelan population. Land prices there are too high, Diaz said.
Instead, the company is focusing on eastern Broward and Palm Beach counties. Outside Boca Raton, it is developing two high-end townhouse projects in Fort Lauderdale and two condos in Deerfield Beach.
“The price of land is more reasonable, demand is there and we are not relying on assumptions of foreign buyers,” he said. “We liked the fact we can offer luxury to a local market.”
Comments