Joel Engelhardt
We here at Stet love a good mystery.
And what’s better than a secret Delaware-based corporation investing $14.5 million in one of our community’s most vulnerable neighborhoods? Could the new investor make good on decades of attempts to stabilize a predominantly Black neighborhood on the edge of a red-hot downtown? Or could it be an early step toward the feared prospect of gentrification, where low-income residents are forced out by rising rents?
So we did some checking and we found out the buyer of more than 50 homes, mostly in West Palm Beach’s Historic Northwest Neighborhood, is … drumroll please … Beacon Ridge Capital Management.
That’s right. Beacon Ridge Capital Management of Boca Raton. Never heard of them?
You’re not alone.
Beacon is a “real estate investment management and advisory firm” specializing in single-family rentals. Its chairman and CEO, Mark DeSario, and several top executives, previously worked at Merrill Lynch. DeSario is on the board of Africa Crest Education Holdings, a builder of schools in Africa that is backed by Dubai Investments PJSC. He also lists himself as chairman of Investbridge Capital, based in London and Dubai.
Doing business in Florida as Rosemary 1 WPB, Beacon dropped $14.5 million in July 2022 to buy what’s left of a 1990s public-private investment once known as Rosemary Village. Its identity became clear in public records related to the transfer of tax credits. The land sale but not the buyer’s identity was first disclosed that same month by The Palm Beach Post.
As for its plans, Beacon isn’t ready to say.
But we know this: The previous owner, Miami developer Tarek Kirschen, described the mystery company to The Post’s Kimberly Miller as an “investment fund that manages multifamily,” adding “they want to keep it affordable housing.”
It looks like they’re here to stay: Property records reveal that so far in 2023, Beacon has hired a roofer to replace roofs on 21 homes.
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