The Gloria Drummond Patient Tower at Boca Raton Regional Hospital adds 216 private patient rooms and 20 surgical suites. Rendering provided
By Christine Davis
Four years after breaking ground, Baptist Health South Florida recently held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Gloria Drummond Patient Tower at Boca Raton Regional Hospital, which is scheduled to open in the next few weeks.
Part of the $1.1 billion total expansion of the campus, the tower adds 216 private patient rooms and 20 surgical suites. Additionally, the new tower introduces a 16-bed cardiac intensive care unit.
Amenities include an on-site pharmacy, gift shop, indoor-outdoor restaurant, chapel and a dedicated Shabbat room. With the expansion, the hospital houses a total of 561 beds.
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Jeff Greene sold the 134-room Tideline Palm Beach Ocean Resort, 2842 S. Ocean Blvd., Palm Beach, for $150 million.
The deed, recorded Sept. 22, reflected $112.61 million in real estate value. The balance covered non-real estate assets such as furniture, artwork and equipment as well as intangibles, like the hotel’s branding.
“I owned it for 15 years. It was great to own it, but it’s a lot of work running and operating a business, and we wish the new buyer the best of luck with it,” Greene said.
He said he had put in “at least $20 million and that was just in the renovations. We put a lot into it, a lot of work and 15 years of a lot of sweat equity. Plus we put a lot of cash into it — tens of millions of dollars to make it like a new hotel.”
The deed names the buyer as PB S Ocean Blvd. Owner LLC, a Delaware-registered limited liability company. The Real Deal reported that the buyer is an affiliate of Fort Partners, a real estate and hospitality firm. Another Fort Partners affiliate owns the Four Seasons Palm Beach Resort immediately north of the Tideline property.
Greene said that Eastdil Secured Savills brokered the sale.
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London-based Christopher Rokos sold an ocean-to-Intracoastal Waterway estate at 1370 S. Ocean Blvd., Manalapan, for $83.2 million. The buyer was BigOcean 3M Land Trust, with BigOcean 3M LLC.
Bank of America provided a $58.24 million mortgage to the borrower, which had Rebecca Francus sign the document as the manager. The 18,360-square-foot home was built on a 2.83-acre site in 1972. Rokos is the CEO of hedge fund Rokos Capital Management. Jack Elkins of William Raveis Real Estate represented the seller in the deal. Rosalind Clarke of Premier Estate Properties worked with the buyer.
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James Batmasian expanded his Boca Raton holdings with the purchase of an office building for $38.15 million and a retail/office complex for $4.5 million in a package deal. In the larger transaction, 595 Financial Plaza LLC, managed by Boca Raton resident John H. Slavik, sold the 249,794-square-foot office building at 555 S. Federal Highway to 595 Federal Investments LLC, care of Investments Ltd., led by Batmasian. It last sold for $33.2 million in 2014. Slavik’s 880 Palmetto LLC sold the 4,000-square-foot retail/office complex at 880 E. Palmetto Park Road to Batmasian’s 880 EPPR Investments LLC. It last sold for $2.6 million in 2017.
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Salvatore Calvino, a founder and head of private equity firm Equivu Capital, and his wife, Karen, sold their 12,055-square-foot home at 2989 Spanish River Road, Boca Raton, for $22.5 million. The new owner is 2989 SRRT LLC, managed by attorney Scott C. Ford in Boston. Matthew Moser and Nicholas Gonzalez of the Matt and Nick Team at Serhant brokered the deal.
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Big Ben FL LLC, led by Mark Benjamin in West Newton, Massachusetts, purchased a waterfront home at 35 Spoonbill Road, Manalapan, for $17.25 million. Rocket Mortgage provided an $11.21 million second home loan. The seller was homebuilder Ocean Blue Custom Homes, which had purchased the 0.36-acre lot for $3 million in 2022. It’s located in a basin of the Intracoastal Waterway. Gary Pohrer of Serhant represented the seller in the deal, while Chad Carroll of the Chad Carroll Group at Compass Florida worked with the buyer.
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A trust led by attorney William Mark Lanier, the head of a trial law firm in Houston, sold an 8,109-square-foot home at 133 W. Coconut Palm Road, in the Royal Palm Yacht & Country Club, Boca Raton, for $15.65 million. The buyer was the 133 W. Coconut Palm Road Trust, with attorney Manuel Farach as trustee. The home, which is on a 0.37-acre site along a canal leading to the Intracoastal Waterway, last traded new for $11.45 million in 2019. David Roberts of Royal Palm Properties represented both sides in the deal.
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After departing Delray Beach in 2018, the New York-based company ABC Carpet & Home has returned to South Florida, leasing an 18,246-square-foot showroom at 601 N. Federal Highway, Boca Raton. Ripco Real Estate’s Jeremy Modest and Ryan Tucker represented ABC Carpet & Home in the transaction. Daron Tersakyan of Boca Raton-based Investments Ltd. was the listing agent for the building, which is owned by 601 Federal Investments LLC, managed by James Batmasian in Boca Raton.
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Procacci Development Group has submitted preliminary plans to the city of Boca Raton for a nine-story, mixed-use building at 95 and 51 S. Federal Highway. The project would total about 249,448 square feet, with 84 residential units, 8,494 square feet of retail and restaurant space, and 8,580 square feet of office space. It would have two below-ground parking structures: one self-park and one fully automated valet. Plans also include landscaping and hardscape improvements.
The proposal was on the agenda for the city’s Planning Advisory Review meeting on Sept. 8. The developer is seeking an individual development approval. A preliminary submission is meant to get general staff comments and may or may not lead to a formal application. Miskel Backman LLP represents the developer, and Senior Planner Jacob German is the assigned city staff member.
Procacci bought 95 S. Federal Highway in 2012 for $2.75 million. This 0.58-acre site is the company’s corporate office. Procacci bought 51 S. Federal Highway, a strip of shops with parking behind on 0.54 acres, for $6 million in December 2025.
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PBP Real Estate, 700 NW Seventh Drive in Boca Raton, has built an online housing data clearing house, covering 83 South Florida cities across five counties that refreshes every morning with numbers for buyers and owners. To access this free tool, visit pbprealestate.com/data/.
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Discover the Palm Beaches, the county’s tourism marketing organization, announced in September that the county welcomed 6.09 million visitors during the first six months of the year, up 6.4% from the same period in 2025.
Domestic visitor numbers rose 8.6% year over year during the first half of 2026. New York remained Palm Beach County’s largest domestic source market, up 7.1%; Washington, D.C., increased 8.7%, Philadelphia rose 8.4% and Atlanta grew 5.4%. Dallas and Houston recorded some of the biggest gains, up 23.3% and 20.6%. International numbers increased 6% compared with the first half of 2025. Colombia led that growth with a 28.6% increase; the United Kingdom, up 21.8%; and Brazil, up 11.8%.
Canadian visitor numbers also increased despite a broader decline across Florida. Bucking a statewide decline, Palm Beach County saw a 1.8% increase in the first half of the year, while Florida fell 13.9%. The gap widened during the second quarter, when Canadian tourism to the county increased 12.5%, and Florida declined 4.2%.
Room night revenue totaled $918 million during the first half of 2026, an 11% increase from a year earlier. Average occupancy was 77%.
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Florida Atlantic University won a $200,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology. The money will go toward helping prepare students and professionals for new cybersecurity challenges related to quantum computers.
This comes as FAU gets ready to bring a powerful new quantum computer to its Boca Raton campus and expand hands-on education and training in the field.
The initiative will be led by Yufei Tang, an FAU electrical engineering and computer science professor and director of the FPL Center for Intelligent Energy Technologies.
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PlanRev.ai, a new software company led by CEO Shane Laakso and general counsel Erin Deady, sponsored and exhibited at the Florida Association of Counties Innovation & Policy Conference in Jacksonville. PlanRev.ai uses artificial intelligence to check development plans against a city’s or county’s own rules. This helps local governments review plans faster and more consistently, while still keeping control of final decisions.
The company’s tools are already being used by local governments and consultants for commercial, mixed use, marinas, single-family homes and other development projects.
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Florida Atlantic University moved up to No. 99 for the first time in the U.S. News & World Report 2027 rankings of “Top Public Schools,” a one-spot gain over last year. Florida Atlantic also earned a No. 68 ranking among “Best Value Schools for In-state Students” in the National Universities category, a new ranking introduced for 2027.
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A.D. Henderson University School and Florida Atlantic University High School combined to rank No. 1 nationally and in Florida among “Best Public K-12 Schools,” in Niche.com’s 2027 rankings. This is the first time that FAU Lab Schools have earned the nation’s top K-12 spot. Niche, a website that researches public and private K-12 schools, evaluated 1,903 schools across the country.
Individually, FAU High rose eight spots to No. 15 in the “Best Public High School” category. The school also ranked No. 5 in the country for “Best College Prep Public High School.” In Florida, FAU High moved up to No. 2 in both the “Best Public High School” and “Best College Prep Public High School” categories. FAU Lab Schools’ educators ranked No. 1 for “Best Teachers in Florida” at the elementary, middle and high school levels.
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American Heritage Schools announced that 30 seniors from the Palm Beach Campus, Delray Beach, were named National Merit Scholar semifinalists. Another 64 seniors were honored as National Commended Scholars. The Palm Beach Campus leads Palm Beach County as the school with the highest number of National Merit Scholar semifinalists, and is second among schools in Florida.
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TMGOC Ventures, a Boca Raton hospitality real estate investment firm, changed its name to the Montford Group in September. Founded in 2022 by Sunju Patel and Glenn Alba, the firm announced that its ownership, leadership, investment strategy, and portfolio are unchanged.
Montford Group manages about $1.5 billion in investments and development projects, covering more than 4,233 hotel rooms. The properties are affiliated with Marriott International, the Ritz-Carlton, Autograph Collection, Moxy by Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt and Accor’s Fairmont.
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Three startups joined the Global Ventures program at the Research Park at Florida Atlantic University. They are: BANKIRR (short for Bank Interest Rate Research), a platform that helps homebuyers and investors upload a mortgage loan estimate and receive a competing offer within one business day; Novprox LLC, a nutrition technology company that makes low-cost, long-lasting foods from climate-resilient ingredients; and Vesica Pulse Sensing, a medical device company founded by a former U.S. Food and Drug Administration official.
Two businesses that joined the research park in 2025 are also expanding: Standard Space Antennas, a maker of high-performance antennas for satellites and space missions, and CloudLabs, an education technology company.
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The Greater Delray Beach Chamber of Commerce announced a set of changes to its board of directors and staff as it heads into 2027. Andrea Smallwood, a financial adviser with Northwestern Mutual who has served as chair of the Chamber’s board of directors since April 2026, will hold the position into 2027. Mark Burns of BlueIvy Communications was named the incoming board chair and will take over the role at the close of Smallwood’s term. Smallwood succeeded Shaun Hall, who continues to serve on the board. Jeffrey Fine, director of sales at iThink Financial, will join the board as a director. The Chamber also announced the hiring of Justin Balser as membership director.
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The Boynton Beach Chamber of Industry & Commerce, in partnership with Intention Enterprises and The Nexus Suites of Boynton Beach, organized a back-to-school supply drive that benefited Poinciana Elementary School in Boynton Beach.
Christine Roberts, founder and CEO of Intention Enterprises and executive vice president of the Boynton Beach Chamber, said, “By partnering with local businesses and organizations, the Chamber was able to turn member participation into direct support for students and educators at Poinciana Elementary School.”
Roberts was also appointed to the Boynton Beach Library Advisory Board by the mayor and City Commission. She also serves on the Palm Beach County Small Business Development Advisory Board.
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Four Sparrows Mahjong recently opened at 328 Plaza Real in Boca Raton’s Mizner Park, offering open-play tables, classes, private event space and a boutique of mahjong tiles, racks, mats and other accessories. Four Sparrows was founded by four sisters: Andrea Reid, Michelle McGovern, Cristina Crenshaw and Danielle Catsman. Their love of mahjong grew from playing with their mother, Arlene Oyola, around her kitchen table.
“Mahjong has this wonderful way of bringing people together,” said Reid, a family law attorney. “You sit down to play, but before long you’re talking, laughing and making memories. We wanted to create a place that captures that feeling, somewhere beautiful and fun, but also relaxed enough that anyone can walk in and feel welcome.”
Hours are Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more info, call 561-218-4958 or visit foursparrowsmahj.com.
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Parlor Doughnuts is now open at 9 Plaza Real S., Suite 108, Boca Raton, offering its layered doughnuts along with gluten-friendly, vegan and keto options. Parlor also serves coffee and breakfast and brunch items that include avocado toast, acai bowls and breakfast tacos. “We want to create a space where neighbors can connect, laugh, and feel welcome over our crafted doughnuts,” say the owners, Corey Elwell and Ben Boulet. Each Parlor Doughnuts franchise location features a unique local graphic inside the shop.
Parlor’s ownership group is also passionate about giving back, especially through supporting active military members, veterans and first responders. Hours are 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily.
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Marjorie Waldo, president and CEO of the Delray Beach nonprofit Arts Garage, is a finalist for Female Executive of the Year (Government or Nonprofit/ 11 to 2,500 Employees category) in the 23rd annual Stevie Awards for Women in Business. Finalists were chosen from more than 1,500 nominations worldwide, scored by more than 190 professionals on seven juries. All finalists will receive a Gold, Silver or Bronze Stevie Award, to be announced at a banquet on Nov. 16 in New York City.
Waldo has led Arts Garage since November 2016 when the organization was in financial distress. She paid off its debt, brought in new sources of revenue, and rebuilt trust with donors. Arts Garage now presents more than 300 programs a year to more than 31,000 patrons from nearly 150 cities across 18 states. It generates an estimated $3.8 million in local economic impact each year. In 2024, when statewide cultural funding shifted, Waldo led a community campaign that kept programming and staff in place.
In December 2025, the City Commission voted to give Arts Garage $270,000 to support it through summer 2027.
Send business news to Christine Davis at cdavis9797@gmail.com.
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