Famed architect Robert A.M. Stern is bringing his New York touch to West Palm Beach with the super-luxury South Flagler House. Prices for the apartments range from $10 million to $75 million.By Jennifer Epstein
(Bloomberg) — Robert A.M. Stern is bringing his New York touch to West Palm Beach.
The architect whose firm designed some of New York’s top residential buildings, including 15 Central Park West and 220 Central Park South, is now working on a similarly upscale apartment project in West Palm Beach, where prices are expected to set records for a city that was once seen as Palm Beach’s less glamorous neighbor.
“We really want it to count in the way that, say, 15 Central Park West counted when we designed that 15 years ago in Manhattan,” Stern said in his first interview about the project, South Flagler House. Sales formally began on Wednesday.
Prices start at $10 million for a three-bedroom unit and roughly $75 million for the duplex penthouse in each of the project’s 28-story towers, which are staggered so that the windows of one building don’t look directly into those of the other. With details inspired by the Mediterranean and Mission Revival houses of the nearby El Cid neighborhood, the 89-unit project will be clad in limestone, not the glass and steel that are typical of new developments in South Florida.
Stern was hired by international developer Hines, a longtime collaborator, and the Palm Beach-based Frisbie Group, to design a building that would have the same impact on West Palm Beach that he’s had on New York.
A rendering of the two towers that will make up the South Flagler House.
The large apartments, with many units featuring outdoor space and sweeping views across the Intracoastal Waterway and Palm Beach to the Atlantic Ocean, are only part of the building’s appeal, Stern said. Amenities will include multiple swimming pools, a wellness center, several lounges, a pickleball court and other offerings meant to evoke a private club, he said. The towers will also be built atop stepped gardens and townhouses with as many as seven bedrooms.
“This will be a place that will have a strong identity for the people who will buy apartments and choose it as their residential base,” Stern said.
The building, which is scheduled to be completed in 2026, is part of Robert A.M. Stern Architects’ first wave of multi-family residential projects in South Florida, along with the 354-unit St. Regis Residences in Miami’s Brickell neighborhood. The firm’s expanded presence in Florida marks the latest in the pandemic-era influx of New Yorkers, and the businesses that serve them, to the Palm Beach area.
West Palm Beach’s residential development boom started before the Covid-19 pandemic as buyers started branching out from Palm Beach. The boom was amplified by the pandemic, as financial services workers became free to work from home.
Firms including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management have signed leases for new office space in the area. Average sale prices for single-family home in select areas of West Palm Beach increased by 21% in the first quarter of this year from the same period a year earlier, according to Brown Harris Stevens, and several new condo buildings are under construction along South Flagler Drive.
Before South Flagler House’s units hit the market, the most expensive listing for a condo in the area was a $29.5 million full-floor unit near the top of the neighboring Forte on Flagler, a glass tower designed by Arquitectonica.
Prices are expected to start at $10 million for a three-bedroom unit.
Nearly 40% of the South Flagler House’s units were reserved by a mix of current Palm Beach residents and others during a word-of-mouth preview period. The size of the apartments gives the units the feeling of being “a home in the sky,” said Suzanne Frisbie of the Corcoran Group, who’s leading sales for the building.
“There will probably be quite a few people living here who also will continue to have residences in Manhattan or Philadelphia or Boston or wherever and they will be able to transfer from one place to the other a sense of urbanity, of sophistication,” Stern said. “This is not just a place to hang your bathing suit.”To contact the author of this story:
Jennifer Epstein in New York at jepstein32@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Katherine Chiglinsky at kchiglinsky@bloomberg.net
Craig Giammona