By Christine Davis
The Boynton Beach Mall may halve its retail space and add apartments, hotels and offices. Under a proposal filed for the 108.3-acre site by landowners, the redeveloped mall would include 1,420 multifamily units, 400 hotel rooms, 629,000 square feet of retail, 65,000 square feet of general offices, 65,000 square feet of medical offices, a 20,000-square-foot fitness center and 10,000 square feet of fast-food restaurants.
The mall currently has 1.15 million square feet of retail and movie-theater space. The Cinemark theater and a church would remain, and open space would be increased by 6.7 acres to 23.3 acres of new pedestrian and public spaces. The proposal, considered by City Commission on Dec. 9, will be up for final approval on Feb. 18.
In December, a joint venture between Investcorp and The Preiss Co. secured a $71 million refinance loan from Square Mile Capital Management for University Park, a student housing complex near Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. The 11-acre complex, with 159 units in eight four-story buildings at 135 NW 20th St., was completed in 2015.
The joint venture partnership of Rosemurgy Properties, Giles Capital Group and Lewis Rental Properties sold University Park to the joint venture in 2016 for $70 million, as part of a three-property sale for a combined $105.25 million.
Harold V. Groome Jr., the chairman of Groome Transportation, purchased Thomas and Toni Mendiburu’s home at 484 S. Maya Palm Drive in Boca Raton for $11.5 million. The sale was recorded on Dec. 23. The six-bedroom home, with 131 feet fronting the Grand Canal, was built in 2018. David W. Roberts with Royal Palm Properties represented the seller and buyer in the deal. Groome Transportation provides airport shuttle services at 13 airports.
Grafton Street Capital, led by Sean Posner and Jed Resnick, and Halstatt Real Estate Partners, developers of 3621 S. Ocean in Highland Beach, sold townhouse No. 3 to JHJ Family Trust, managed by trustee Jeffrey Herzog, for $6.05 million. The sale was recorded on Jan. 6.
Also recorded on Jan. 6, the development group sold townhouse No. 4 to Christin and Joseph Kohls for $5.75 million. Joseph Kohls was a senior managing director of Guggenheim Securities’ health care investment banking group, and previously was co-head of global health care investment banking at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
The development, which consists of two buildings with three units each, is represented by Jennifer Kilpatrick of the Corcoran Group. The buyers’ agents in these sales were the Senada Adzem team, Douglas Elliman Real Estate, for townhouse No. 3, and Kerry Warwick of the Corcoran Group for townhouse No. 4. Two townhomes are listed for sale through Kilpatrick, and one unit is offered for resale through the Senada Adzem team.
Race car driver Vincent Khristov has listed his Delray Beach home for $2.495 million with Michael Prettitore and Derek Barra, agents with Douglas Elliman. Khristov, who drives for the Dallas-based Crosslink/Kiwi Motorsport Team on the U.S. Formula 4 circuit, has competed in 42 races as a professional.
His residence at 943 Fern Drive is a newly renovated contemporary home in the Tropic Isle community. With almost 5,000 square feet under air, the four-bedroom home fronts 90 feet on a wide canal off the Intracoastal Waterway. Features include an open floor plan, cathedral ceilings, marble and porcelain floors, an oversized loft and a large pool.
Group P6 has launched sales for Royal Palm Residences, a 48-unit condominium with three nine-story buildings at the corner of Fifth Avenue and East Royal Palm Road in downtown Boca Raton. Royal Palm Residences will have three- to five-bedroom units, with 2,425 square feet to 7,168 square feet, priced from $1.75 million to $3.9 million.
The Boca Raton-based firm RLC Architects designed Royal Palm Residences, and Suffolk Construction will be the project’s general contractor. The project is expected to break ground in June, with completion in 2022. One Sotheby’s International Realty is handling sales and marketing.
A 41,000-square-foot Whole Foods Market opened Jan. 29 at 680 Linton Blvd., Delray Beach. This is Palm Beach County’s fourth Whole Foods store. One percent of the store’s net sales during the first four days were to benefit community partners Delray Beach Children’s Garden, CROS Ministries Delray Beach Food Pantry, The Milagro Center, Jacobson Family Food Pantry and Healthier Delray Beach.
FSB Menswear, noted for its Italian product line, will close its Ocean Avenue store in Boynton Beach on March 31, ending nearly 50 years in business here. The company, known for its slogan, “You enter as a customer and leave as friends and family,” is taking a sabbatical to reflect on its next business venture.
“I wish only the best to the (Boynton Beach) business community, of which I was proud to be a part for all these years,” said Giovanni Marquez, operations director. The news release said the company planned to maintain its website to stay connected to “20,000 faithful shoppers worldwide.”
“We are not quitting and we’re not retiring,” the release said, “but rather will be reinventing and refreshing.”
The Palm Beach County Business Development Board has made note of South County kudos reported in Florida Trend’s December 2019 issue. They included findings by Vanessa Caceres in U.S. News that half of the hospitals listed for “Largest Hospitals Around the State” in the Southeast category are in Palm Beach County: Delray Medical Center — 493 beds in Delray Beach; JFK Medical Center — 486 beds in Atlantis; St. Mary’s Medical Center — 460 beds in West Palm Beach; Bethesda Hospital East — 401 beds in Boynton Beach; and Boca Raton Regional Hospital — 400 beds in Boca Raton.
Florida Atlantic University was highlighted for launching a master’s degree in artificial intelligence.
Out of 20 restaurants that won “Golden Spoon Hall of Fame” awards in the Southeast, these are in south Palm Beach County: Casa D’Angelo, La Nouvelle Maison, Louie Bossi’s Ristorante Bar and Pizzeria, TwentyTwenty Grille, The Grove and Salt7.
Jessica Steinweg is the new director of marketing and communications at Delray Beach’s Old School Square.
Previously, Steinweg was at BrandStar, a brand-marketing agency in Pompano Beach, where she oversaw marketing promotions for the company and for its TV programs.
The South Florida Science Center and Aquarium was awarded $100,000 through the Stiles-Nicholson Foundation to increase STEM education for Palm Beach County students, centered around a goal to expand robotics programs through the nonprofit FIRST, or For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.
This award is in addition to a recent $50,000 STEM Equity Community Innovation Grant received by the Palm Beach County School District from FIRST, which advances science, technology, engineering and math education.
The Palm Beach County School District, the South Florida Science Center and Aquarium, and Green Mouse Academy have already begun to implement a FIRST Lego League program expansion for pre-K through grade-four students, to provide robotics equipment labs, curriculum, training and coaching.
This year’s FIRST global robotics theme challenges students to imagine and create a building that solves a problem and then use Lego robotics to design and program their Boomtown Build.
The Florida Prepaid College Board recently lowered prepaid plan prices by $1.3 billion, which will benefit 224,000 customers. The price reductions, which apply to plans purchased since 2008, were due to successive years of lower-than-anticipated tuition and fee increases.
Nearly half of the customers have refunds available, totaling more than $500 million. The remaining plans will have lower monthly payment amounts.
Open enrollment is Feb. 1 through April 30. Families can enroll in a prepaid plan for free, a $50 savings, by using promo code EARLY50 through Feb. 29.
Families can use the prepaid plan online tool (www.myfloridaprepaid.com/prepaid-plans/plans-and-pricing/) for information on plans and payment options.
Those eligible to receive refunds or reductions received notification from the board in January. For information about how a plan was affected, go to myfloridaprepaid.com/lowprices.
Boca West Children’s Foundation is partnering with the Junior League of Boca Raton’s Diaper Bank to raise awareness that diapers are as essential as food and shelter for infants and toddlers.
On Feb. 18, the two organizations will set out to collect 50,000 diapers to aid underserved families in Palm Beach County. Drop-offs can be made at the league’s Vegso Community Resource Center at 261 NW 13th St.
“Our mission is to help local kids in need, and with the cost of diapers being prohibitively high for many families, the Diaper Bank is such an impactful way to help,” said Pamela Weinroth, executive director and chief operating officer of the foundation. “When families have limited funds, keeping an infant in diapers becomes a luxury.”
For information about the foundation, call 561-488-6980 or visit www.bocawestfoundation.org.
For information about the Junior League, call 561-620-2553 or visit www.jlbr.org.
The Greater Delray Beach Chamber of Commerce’s Delray Business Partners leads group set a record for collaboration under the leadership of its chair, Jan Kinder. During 2019, the 35 members of the Delray Business Partners generated more than $165,000 of gross sales by doing business with one another as well as by referring their colleagues in the group to other potential clients.
“At each meeting, members are encouraged to exchange business leads — potential clients or customers for other members of the group,” Kinder said. “In effect, their contacts become your contacts; their customers can become your customers. Members also rotate making short presentations about their businesses.”
For more information, contact the chamber’s Kristopher Fisher at 561-278-0424, or visit www.delraybeach.com.
For information on the Delray Business Partners leads group, visit https://delraybusinesspartners.com.
The Greater Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce partnered with the Dolph Map Co. to publish a Boca Raton street map, which will include a member business directory section. The chamber will distribute the map and include a link to it on its home page at www.bocachamber.com. ;
Send business news to Christine Davis at cdavis9797@gmail.com.
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