Carolyn DiPaoloA campus in West Palm Beach would serve employees of the Palm Beach oceanfront resort.
Agents for The Breakers Palm Beach resort are assembling land to build apartments for many of the hotel’s 2,400 employees.
Why it matters: The Breakers Employee Housing Campus could free affordable units to be rented by the public. It would also ease transportation needs for staff housed at the campus, which would be about 4 miles from the 140-acre oceanfront resort.
Under the plan, The VDG Land Co. LLC would buy 1.16 acres of vacant city property at 2410 N. Australian Ave., north of the Uptown 22 apartments and across from Lake Mangonia.
- Tuesday, with no discussion, the City Commission unanimously agreed to declare the property surplus.
- An affiliated company, led by VDG’s Fritz Van der Grift, paid $4.5 million in January for two neighboring properties amounting to 1.3 acres.
By the numbers: In addition to hundreds of local residents and college students, The Breakers employed 249 people who were in the country under H-2B guest worker visas as of September 2024.
About the city land: The southern third of the property contains underground utilities, a lift station and overhead power lines, which make it a challenge to develop, city officials wrote.
Between the lines: Van der Grift, a 2010 graduate of Palm Beach Atlantic University, was an assistant to Florida CFO Jeff Atwater for two years before moving on to Morgan Stanley and later Merrill Lynch and starting his own company in 2022, according to his LinkedIn page. He did not return a call or email for comment.
What’s next: Now that the land was declared surplus, the city plans to begin negotiations on a price.
Editor’s note: This story was updated to note the City Commission’s approval of a resolution to declare the property surplus.
