Jane MusgraveDeveloper plans to break ground this summer even as it still must conclude a lease with Palm Beach County and secure city approval.
Less than three months before Related Ross plans to break ground on a second 400-room hotel next to the Palm Beach County Convention Center, nearby residents are gearing up for a fight.
Worried that the planned 20-story hotel will be a nightmare both during and after construction, neighbors last week asked the company owned by billionaire Stephen Ross to take steps to protect their homes and the lives of future visitors.
“We don’t support the site plan,” said Bruce Barber, who lives in the historic Grandview Heights community, just south of where the $310 million hotel is to be built. “As designed, it constitutes a nuisance that will interfere with the safety, privacy and the enjoyment of our neighborhood.”
Residents of the nearby 420-unit CityPlace South Tower, built in 2008 by a Ross company, voiced concerns about what the addition of a second hotel would do to their ability to drive in and out of their 20-story condo, which is bordered by two narrow streets and the perpetually traffic-choked Okeechobee Boulevard.
“That’s going to create a big jam coming out of our building,” said Stuart Opotowsky, who lives in the condominium that is across from both the existing Hilton West Palm Beach and the nearly 2-acre parking lot where Related plans to build the second hotel.
Some of the roughly 60 people who gathered June 2 in a ballroom at the Hilton worried that their concerns won’t be addressed.
Jamie Linen, who lives in Grandview Heights, captured a common perception among city residents when he said it appears that West Palm Beach Mayor Keith James and city commissioners will approve anything Related wants.
The meeting came roughly six weeks after a firestorm erupted when The Palm Beach Post reported that James and Ross were working together to create a $30 million park along the Intracoastal Waterway that would involve closing parts of Flagler Drive and seizing land where the popular E.R. Bradley’s Saloon sits. After the uproar, James announced that the plan had been put on hold until residents were given a chance to weigh in.
While Linen didn’t refer to that controversy, he bristled at the impact Related has had on the city.
“We don’t want Steve Ross to turn it into a mini-Miami,” Linen said. “We want the life that we came for. That’s it.”
Once run-down, Grandview Heights was revitalized in the 1990s along with the nearby Flamingo Park and El Cid neighborhoods when city residents became alarmed at the number of 1920s-era homes that were leveled to make way for a development project that gave way to the Kravis Center, the convention center and Ross’ CityPlace.
The nearly 600 homes, apartments and duplexes in the neighborhood were snapped up by people who wanted to live near downtown in historic homes.
Traffic? What traffic?
Related officials disputed Linen’s contention that their projects don’t get rigorous scrutiny from city leaders. They promised to address residents’ concerns.
Alex O’Connor, a company vice president, said residents’ fears about increased traffic are unfounded.
Unlike commuters, hotel guests come and go at all hours, he said. Studies have shown that traffic from the new hotel will add less than three seconds to wait times for motorists trying to turn onto Okeechobee Boulevard.
To address residents’ concerns that music from a rooftop bar and restaurant or parties on the 23,000-square-foot second-floor pool deck would keep them up at night, he promised to institute a 10 pm curfew. He agreed that road calming would be installed along Rosemary Street so tip-hungry valets don’t speed up and down the road that is a popular walking path.
He also agreed to build a second cut-through that would enable people on foot or bicycle to get from Grandview Heights to Okeechobee Boulevard. Roughly 600 people use the existing cut-through every day and during the winter tourist season that number swells to more than 1,000, Barber said.
O’Connor, however, drew the line at a repeated suggestion that Related build a pedestrian walkway over Okeechobee so people can safely walk to and from CityPlace.
The cost of such a walkway is enormous and the permitting for it complex, O’Connor said.
“That’s not a project for Related to do,” he said. “It’s not on our property. It’s on state and city land. That would be a municipal project.”
The proposal has been floated and dropped several times since CityPlace began construction in the late 1990s. One proposal even called for boring a tunnel under Okeechobee to make the surface car-free.
Barber and others said they will continue to contest the plan that is to be considered by the city’s Planning and Zoning Board on June 16.
Under an accelerated schedule, the project would be reviewed by the city and county commissions in July or August with a groundbreaking planned for August or September, O’Connor said. The hotel is to be completed in the first part of 2029.
County hasn’t approved $1 billion deal yet
While the City Commission must approve the site plans, county commissioners must sign off on a complex deal to allow Related to build the hotel that tourism officials say is needed to boost business at the convention center.
Under a proposal negotiated by County Administrator Joe Abruzzo, Related would pay the county a minimum of $1 billion over the next century — roughly $10 million a year — to operate the hotel on the land the county will own. Under the proposal, the county would pay Related $26 million for the property, taking it off the tax rolls.
In addition, Related would pay the county $1.8 million a year, including $100 per space monthly to rent 590 spaces in the lightly used county-owned convention center parking garage. Related could use the spaces in the 2,550-space garage for the new hotel and the existing one it owns on the other side of Rosemary.
Related would start renting spaces in the garage as soon as construction begins. That means construction workers would park in the garage instead of in Grandview Heights as residents feared.
Barber acknowledged that the proposed curved glass-walled hotel, to be a 4½-star Curio Collection by Hilton, is stunning. Along with the pool, it will feature a 3,700-square-foot public park and 19,000 square feet of meeting space. Related recently signed a contract with Blackbird, a fast-growing upscale Asian chain that began in Jupiter, to operate the rooftop restaurant and bar.
But, Barber said, the hotel will have an enormous impact on the neighborhood.
“You’ve got a high-impact, high-density hotel that is incompatible with a very low-density single-family neighborhood next door,” he said.
Steps have to be taken to protect the neighborhood, he said.
