Alexandra Clough – Real Time

Stranded at Flagler Shore? Readers react

Flagler Shore in West Palm Beach is a neat idea — for the fairgrounds, said retired businessman Robert Garvy. “At least they have public restrooms there,” Garvy said.

Garvey is one of a number of business leaders and residents who were sympathetic to the frustration expressed by Dennis Hammond of Sandpointe Asset Management, with offices in the Phillips Point office complex on Flagler Drive.

Recently, Hammond told the Palm Beach Post and city leaders he was dismayed by the city’s Flagler Shore project, which involve shutting down a portion of the eastern lanes of Flagler Drive to make way for chairs, bicyclists, street jugglers and graffiti-laden shipping containers.

City officials say they’re trying to broaden the waterfront’s appeal by making it a more pedestrian and bicycle-friendly place. The partial road shutdown runs through March 1.

Hammond says the effort is “goofy” and anti-business.

Flagler Drive is an important north-south thoroughfare, Hammond said. He noted the area already has plenty of places to enjoy the waterfront, without necessitating the transformation of a four-lane road into a two-lane one so that people can partake in “pavement lunches on Flagler.”

Garvy, the retired chairman of money management firm, Intech, agreed wholeheartedly.

And bluntly.

“How low can our city leaders take this town? The Flagler waterfront is beautiful as it is,” Garvy wrote Hammond in an email, copied to the Palm Beach Post. ” It’s amazing what lack of vision these people have.”

Garvy is an influential business leader who kicked off the leasing of the CityPlace Tower office building when he moved Intech to the tower’s penthouse, from a location in Palm Beach Gardens.

Robert Garvy, formerly chairman of Intech in West Palm Beach

In an interview, Garvy said he’s making another investment in the city. He bought a unit in The Bristol, the West Palm Beach luxury condominium under construction at 1100 S. Flagler Dr. Garvey plans to move there from a single-family home on Palm Beach.

Now he’s wondering what will happen if the city’s vision of street merchants, roller-bladers and street artists remains a permanent fixture along the waterfront, an area he had contemplated strolling at night.

“The people I’ve talked to recently are appalled, just appalled, not only by the action but by the process that was followed here,” Garvy said, citing the minimal notice to the community.

He’s not alone in being bewildered by the whole venture.

“I can’t help but wonder who would create such an unsightly mess,” Michael Andersen, who works at Phillips Point, wrote in an email to city officials. “The experiment turned this stretch of road into an obstacle course of confused drivers and no new pedestrians.”

In a recent interview, West Palm Beach economic development director Christopher Roog said Flagler Shore isn’t anti-business. In fact, the business community benefits from the public space and recreational features there, Roog said.

“The waterfront is a very important place for (our residents),” Roog said, “so what can we do to make it better for everyone?”

A number of people have expressed their support for the experiment, on a Facebook page called Engage West Palm Beach.

“We drive on Flagler all the time and think it’s great!!” wrote Chris Costello Haerting.

“Flagler Shore is all about trying to better the city of West Palm Beach,” wrote Joseph Russo. “Once (in) awhile, our elected officials take a stand in defense of the new. But before many of these groundbreaking new ideas can take root and flourish, they are often knocked down for fear of change, detriment, or blight…..(While) we might not all agree on the means, we should unite behind the vision at least.”

Garvy hopes any further consideration to extending Flagler Shore will involve the residents and businesses.

The city’s website said it encourages public feedback on the new design and new activities via email at flaglershore@wpb.org.

Votes on adult living, day care west of Boca Raton delayed

Residents west of Boca Raton will have to wait a little longer to find out if a senior living center and a day care will be built near their homes.

A proposal by St. Louis-based Allegro Senior Living and property owner Alan D. Simon to build on Clint Moore Road has been delayed.

The project’s planners requested a postponement of a planning hearing and a vote by the Palm Beach County commission. The meetings were set to take place this month, but now a planning meeting won’t be held until Dec. 8 and a county commission meeting won’t take place until Jan. 31.

Planners said the delay “will allow the applicant to continue to work with the neighbors.”

The projects are proposed for a 13-acre parcel in the Agriculture Reserve, on the north side of Clint Moore Road just west of Florida’s Turnpike.

The Ag Reserve is a 22,000-acre farming and conservation zone west of Boca Raton, Delray Beach and Boynton Beach. Building in the reserve has been limited by strict county rules, but the reserve has been under increasing development pressure.

Allegro wants to build a 151-unit, 223-bed rental adult living facility that will feature independent and assisted living, plus memory care. Allegro operates facilities in Boynton Beach and Jupiter.

Adjacent to the 175,000-square-foot development, a daycare for 240 children also is proposed. Simon is chief executive of Alternative Educational Systems, which owns the Randazzo School in Coconut Creek.

Some residents who live near the property fear the projects will add to traffic and noise in the area. They’ve organized a group, www.clintmoorewest.com, to oppose the project.

Tall, waterview office tower in WPB will get some love

A West Palm Beach office building has traded hands, and its new owners vow to pour money into making the property more attractive to tenants.

One Clearlake Centre just sold to Velocis, a private equity real estate manager, in partnerhip with CREC, a Miami-based real estate company.

The 18-story, 218,461-square-foot tower is at 250 S. Australian Ave., just east of Interstate 95. A sales price could not immediately be obtained.

At a time when business and city leaders say they need more high-quality downtown office space to lure employers, One Clearlake Centre provides an opportunity to provide more choices, said Andrew Remick, CREC vice president.

Millions of dollars in improvements will be made to the building, including upgrades to the lobby, corridors, bathrooms plus a new conference center. The upgrades should be completed within the next 12 to 18 months.

“We’re trying to meet the market demand for Class A space, but at more competitive leasing rates,” Remick said.

There’s plenty of vacant space to work with at Clearlake. The property is only 47 percent occupied, meaning about 100,000 square feet is available for lease. This includes entire floors.

Some of that vacancy is being created by Shoes for Crews, which has 37,657 square feet of space in the building on three floors but is moving to Boca Raton early next year.

CREC plans to break up some of the Clearlake’s floors into small, ready-to-occupy offices. This will allow it to meet demand from what Remick says is the main business tenant in West Palm Beach: Small users needing between 2,500 to 5,000 square feet of space.

Gross rents, which include rent plus all maintenance expenses, now are at about $34, far less than buildings along the Intracoastal Waterway. The rents are expected to inch up after the redo, but still will be far less than other office towers, Remick said.

One Clearlake offers water views, both of Clear Lake to the east and also, at higher levels, of the Intracoastal to the east.

Even better, Remick said, is that the property is away from the traffic crowding downtown streets.

From I-95, it’s a quick turn onto Australian Avenue to arrive at the office tower.

“And there’s no traffic lights, either” he added.

The American is coming! Why a West Palm Beach lawyer is handling a major UK case

What’s an American lawyer doing representing a banker in the biggest U.K. banking scandal in recent years?

Doing his job, that’s what.

West Palm Beach lawyer Brad Kaufman, vice president of the Greenberg Traurig law firm, represents one of four U.K. men charged with various offenses in connection with a long-running investigation into one of the world’s largest banks, Barclays.

The United Kingdom’s Serious Fraud Office in June said former Barclays Chief Executive Officer John Varley, former chairman of investment banking for the Middle East Roger Jenkins, ex-wealth chief Thomas Kalaris, and Richard Boath, the former European head of the bank’s financial institutions group, face charges, along with the bank itself.

Kaufman, co-chair of Greenberg’s global securities litigation group, represents Jenkins.

Kaufman met him years ago when Jenkins and his wife were vacationing in Palm Beach. Since then, Kaufman said he’s represented Jenkins, who now lives in Malibu, in various bank matters.

But past work is nothing like what Jenkins is facing now.

The men, and the bank, are charged with conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation in relation to fundraising in 2008. Barclays raised billions from Qatar in a move that allowed the bank to avoid taking a taxpayer bailout.

Jenkins’ work to find Middle East investors willing to pour money into the bank now is coming back to haunt him. But Kaufman defended Jenkins, saying he “wouldn’t have taken part in any capitalization program without legal advice, both internal and external, to cover every issue raised by the SFO.”

Kaufman said Jenkins “intends to vigorously fight these charges.”

The British press has been agog over the charges, particularly since they come nearly a decade after the global banking crisis. In fact, this is the first time criminal action has been taken against any senior U.K. bankers for events dating to the 2008 financial crisis.

Kaufman said his represenation of Jenkins reflects the globalization of law, and the fact that lawyers can and do handle matters around the globe — and not just lawyers from New York or London but West Palm Beach, too. “This is a real life example of that,” Kaufman said.

Kaufman said technology allows clients to work with professionals of their choice, without relying exclusively on geographic location.

But Kaufman acknowledges he’s been a bit of a curiosity to British barristers, who at first wondered why a Yankee is involved in the case. “But then they accepted me into the fold,” he said.

Did firm that designed WPB office tower steal design on Freedom Tower?

The architecture firm that designed a proposed 25-story office tower on the waterfront in West Palm Beach frequently is lauded as the designer of the Freedom Tower at the World Trade Center in New York.

Now Georgia architect Jeehoon Park has sued the Skidmore, Owings & Merrill architecture firm, claiming it stole the One World Trade Center design from his master’s thesis.

The lawsuit was filed June 14 in U.S. District Court in New York.

Skidmore Owings is the same firm hired by New York’s The Related Cos. to design One Flagler, an office tower proposed on land next to the First Church of Christ, Scientist.

NEW YORK, NY – MARCH 20: One World Trade stands at ground zero in Manhattan on March 20, 2017 in New York City. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has been voicing criticism of President Donald Trump’s proposed budget that could cut as much as $190 million from New York City efforts to fight terrorism. Following two major terrorist attacks and numerous foiled plots, New York City is considered the nation’s prime target for terrorists. The NYPD has stated that it costs $500,000 a day to pay for the nearly 200 police officers in and around Trump Tower on Fifth Ave. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

The land is zoned for only five stories, but Related wants to build 25 stories on the site, at Flagler Drive and Lakeview Avenue.

Some city residents, many of whom live downtown, don’t like the tower proposal. They say the tower is too tall, will worsen traffic, will block some of their views and will forever ruin the city’s waterfront.

But Related and its team have staged numerous city and community meetings to showcase the project and its benefits to the community. They say the deal will give the church money to preserve its 1928 building, plus create new space for companies seeking to relocate to the city.

During these presentations, the tower’s architect, David Childs, is extolled, his work as the architect for the Freedom Tower figuring prominently into the discussions.

In fact, Childs himself appeared before the Economic Forum business group in February to discuss Related’s office tower. “This is a special project,” Childs said. He stressed that he took care to design a building that would stand beside the church and “waltz together.”

In his lawsuit, Park said Skidmore, Owens violated his copyright on a design developed for his master’s thesis. An associate partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill was one of Park’s thesis advisors, according to the complaint.

Neither Childs nor the associate partner is named in the complaint.

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill was dismissive of the lawsuit, which it noted was filed 12 years after the design and four years after the building’s construction. “This lawsuit feels like an attempt to get attention or money, and we are certain this claim will be found to be baseless,” a firm spokeswoman told the Atlanta-Journal Constitution.

A Park lawyer has said his client only recently became aware of his legal rights.

Canopy hotel update: We’re starting construction soon after all

Rendering of Canopy Hotel planned for West Palm Beach

A Canopy Hotel set for West Palm Beach will start construction this fall and not in early 2018, despite what an executive for the hotel’s developer told the Palm Beach Post last week.

This is according to Carlos Rodriguez Jr, chief operating officer of Driftwood Acquisition and Development, an affiliate of Driftwood Hospitality of North Palm Beach.

In an interview Monday, Rodriguez said Driftwood has the $50 million necessary to build the Canopy hotel, a Hilton brand. Construction is slated to start in late September or early October on the 14-story, 150-room hotel.

The sexy, millennial-oriented Canopy is set to rise on the southeast corner of South Dixie Highway and Trinity Place.

In an interview last week, Driftwood executive Andrew Stevens said the hotel needed to raise more money from the EB5 foreign investor program in order to commence construction, which he said wouldn’t begin until the first quarter of 2018.

The hotel originally was slated to be completed by December, then it was supposed to start construction this summer.

But Rodriguez said delays in the project’s construction are due to technical and redesign changes, not financial ones. “We don’t have any issues with capital,” Rodriguez said.

Right now, the building permits have been going through the normal tweaking process by the city of West Palm Beach, Rodriguez said. But just last week, the latest comments came back from staffers, which means Driftwood is even closer to its construction start, he added.

In addition, Rodriguez said the company is close to signing Verdex Construction of West Palm Beach as the project’s general contractor.

The hotel is slated to take 18 months to build, with completion expected by March 2019.

Driftwood is an experienced hotel operator and builder, with properties across the country. But unlike other Driftwood projects, this planned Canopy hotel has been anything but a day at the beach.

The deal first started back in 2014, when a Driftwood investor group first signed a 200-year lease with the property’s land owner, real estate baron Burt Handelsman.

When details of the plan were unveiled to the community, residents of the Two City Plaza condominium objected because they said the hotel would block their western views. The hotel would be less than 75 feet from the 21-story, 467-unit condominium at at 701 S. Olive Ave.

Rodriguez said the hotel project went through a time-consuming redesign so that it would not need any variances. The project received site plan approval from the city late last year.

The only neighborhood issue outstanding is an October 2016 lawsuit filed by 17 condo owners at Two City Plaza. The group is suing the city of West Palm Beach and the property owner Handelsman’s Love 718 Dixie LLC.

The Palm Beach County Circuit Court lawsuit claims the city failed to follow its comprehensive plan when it approved the hotel. The lawsuit seeks to stop the hotel’s construction.

Rodriguez said Driftwood is confident the lawsuit has no merit. It has intervened in the case to join with Love 718 Dixie in asking a judge to dismiss the lawsuit.

When the hotel is completed, “everyone is going to be really happy. It’s going to be a great neighborhood hotel,” Rodriguez said.

Bill Cosby prosecutor: The Palm Beach County connection

Kevin Steele is the Pennsylvania District Attorney prosecuting entertainer Bill Cosby on sexual assault charges.

But here in Palm Beach County, Steele is known as someone else: The son of a prominent Palm Beach County lawyer and a former student at St. Andrew’s School in Boca Raton.

Actor Bill Cosby and aide Andrew Wyatt arrive for Cosby’s trial on sexual assault charges at the Montgomery County Courthouse on June 8 in Norristown, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Eduardo Munoz Alvarez-Pool/Getty Images)

Yes, everything has a Palm Beach County link somehow, including this high-profile trial.

» LATEST: More Cosby deposition read into court record

Kevin Steele is the son of Rodman Steele, an intellectual property attorney who practices at the Duane Morris law firm. Rodman Steele lives in West Palm Beach with his wife, Karen.

Steele said his son, Kevin, grew up in the Philadelphia area but went to high school at St. Andrew’s.

District Attorney of Montgomery County Kevin Steele (Photo by Mark Makela/Getty Images)

Steele declined to discuss his son in greater deal because of the intense publicity surrounding the case.

Cosby is on trial for allegedly drugging and sexually assaulting a Temple University employee in 2004. Cosby has maintained the sex was consensual.

During his 2015 campaign for district attorney, Steele pledged to reopen a 2005 case in which Temple employee Andrea Constant claimed Cosby sexually assaulted her at his home. At the time, a criminal investigation was commence but the matter was dropped, citing lack of evidence.

In the decade since the alleged incident took place, more than 50 women have come forward with similar allegations against Cosby. But Constand’s claim is the only criminal case to arise from the accusations.

The trial is taking place in Norristown, Penn. So Rodman Steele has been in Pennsylvania giving his son moral support during the start of the trial, which began Monday, June 5.

At day’s end, Rodman Steele had this to say: “Just finishing an incredibly long day.”

Darth Vader 2.0: Office tower gets reboot

Northbridge Centre in West Palm Beach

The Force is awakening at the old Darth Vader building in downtown West Palm Beach.

Plans are in the works to do a major upgrade of the Northbridge Centre, the 21-story office building informally named after Luke Skywalker’s father, thanks to its ominous black-glass exterior.

Inside, however, plans are to brighten the 515 N. Flagler Dr. tower with a $10 million upgrade.

Rendering of lobby renovation planned for Northbridge Centre

The goal is to lure new office tenants to the city’s downtown, before talked-about new office towers start rising during the next couple of years.

City business and government leaders have been crying for months there’s not enough office space in the city’s core, prompting developers such as The Related Cos, Charles Cohen and Jeff Greene to draft or consider plans for new office towers.

But owners and brokers at Northbridge say there’s plenty of space in their waterfront building, especially for those coveted hedge funds and private equity firms that the county’s Business Development Board is trying to hard to lure.

“We’re the last game in town, and we’ll be the best game when these renovations are completed,” said Peter Reed, managing principal at Commercial Florida Realty Services in Boca Raton.

“With nearly 100,000 square feet of vacancy, we’re the only building with any appreciable waterfront space left in the market,” added Angelo Bianco, managing partner of Boca Raton-based Crocker Partners, a co-owner of the building.

Commercial Florida is representing Northbridge, along with Tower Commercial.

They are working to draw attention to the sometimes-overlooked property that was acquired last year by Greenfield Partners of Connecticut and Crocker. The companies paid $68.24 million for the 294,000-square-foot building, which includes a separate four-story pavillion with a rooftop garden.

Northbridge, which now houses a number of law firms, is about 70 percent leased. The property was built in 1984.

Plans are afoot to make the building physically as appealing as those waterview vistas, Bianco said.

For starters, gone will be those red stripes on the outside of the building. (Darth Vader didn’t have them; Northbridge soon won’t have them, either.)

Inside, plans are underway to build an upscale conference center that will be able to hold about 140 people. The roughly 3,000-square-foot space will feature all the latest high-tech gadgets and will serve as a building amenity to tower tenants, Bianco said.

Crocker also will add expand the health club and build a brand new café. Bathrooms and floor lobbies will be upgraded and new elevator cabs put in, Bianco said.

Bianco said the building is well-positioned in the market. Physically, it’s right next to the new Flagler Memorial Bridge, which is nearing completion.

Once this north bridge opens, Reed said it will provide less congested traffic flows with easy access to the property, compared to other office towers clustered around the middle bridge at Okeechobee Boulevard.

“Follow the compass rose north, the direction West Palm Beach is moving,” Reed quipped.

From a price perspective, Northbridge’s rental rates are a better bet, too, Reed said.

Rents at Northbridge go for around $30 per foot not including taxes, maintenance and insurance. That’s about $20 per square foot less than buildings such as Phillips Point or CityPlace Tower, where rents start around $50 per square foot, Reed said.

Not surprisingly, Northbridge’s’ brokers are going after the same tenants everyone else in town wants: Mid-sized tenants needing 3,000 to 7,000 square feet of space.

The building upgrades are expected to be completed by May 2018.

Jeff Greene: Almost-new units at The Whitney will rent cheaper than other downtown apartments

Jeff Greene (Lannis Waters/Palm Beach Post)

Palm Beach billionaire Jeff Greene said he paid $24.75 million for 139 units at the Whitney condo in downtown West Palm Beach because they were a good value, “way below replacement costs.”

“The building is only 10 years old, and it was totally rebuilt three years ago because of the Chinese drywall,” Greene said by phone from Los Angeles, where he’s attending the Milken Institute Global Conference.

With the price he paid, Greene said he’ll be able to charge a lower rent than apartments now under construction in several new projects downtown. They include Broadstone City Center, a 315-unit complex; Kolter’s The Alexander, a 205-unit apartment building; and All Aboard Florida’s 275-unit apartment complex.

“You’ve got three giant new luxury residential buildings, and I’m going to be able to offer rent significantly below theirs,” Greene said.

Greene considers this the best part of the Whitney purchase: Some 20 penthouses never were finished.

Greene said they’re decorator-ready, which means there are no kitchen cabinets and no flooring. Greene said he’s going to finish the units and rent those out, too.

In one unusual move for the deep-pocketed investor, Greene borrowed $17 million to finance the deal.

Why a mortgage? “Because that’s how you’re supposed to buy real estate,” Greene said. “Rates are still low.”

Winter of discontent? Life with Trump as a neighbor

Billionaire Jeff Greene

President Trump shines the spotlight on Palm Beach when he leaves the White House to travel south to his part-time home, Mar a Lago, as he did last weekend.

But for some Palm Beach residents, including billionaire investor Jeff Greene, last weekend’s visit also brought gridlock and a hit to one of his businesses.

Read the Post’s coverage on President Trump here

Greene said he lost reservations at his Tideline Resort & Spa due to Trump’s visit. Tideline is at 2842 S. Ocean Blvd. on Palm Beach.

In fact, “a big group went to the Seagate Hotel in Delray Beach because they didn’t want to deal” with the traffic and the hassle of Palm Beach, Greene said.

The Secret Service effectively closed off a portion of Palm Beach near Mar a Lago during the weekend while Trump was in town. West Palm Beach wasn’t much better on Saturday: Trump protesters clogged the waterfront along Flagler Drive.

Other Palm Beach businesses, including some restaurants, lost reservations, too, said Greene, a Palm Beach resident who lives at 1200 S. Ocean Blvd., “two doors down” from Mar a Lago, which is at 1100 S. Ocean Blvd.

(In truth, these are very big doors: The property just south of Mar a Lago is the Bath and Tennis Club, followed by Greene’s $24 million oceanfront estate.)

Laurel Baker, executive director of the Palm Beach Chamber of Commerce, said she’s aware some tourists were having a hard time getting back to their Palm Beach hotels with the security checkpoints and roadblocks.

And shopping on Worth Avenue? Some tourists were afraid to try: “People don’t want to be inconvenienced. They’ll shop elsewhere,” she said.

Baker said she’s now wondering how life in the future will be affected by Trump’s visits to Palm Beach.

For instance: The Palm Beach Boat Show, set for March 23-26.

Although the actual show only lasts a weekend, the set up takes considerably more time. The week before and the week after, a number of yachts cruise into the Intracoastal and go right by Mar a Lago.

If Trump were to fly down to Palm Beach during this time period, boats would be forbidden from cruising on the eastern side of the Intracoastal Waterway that runs near Trump’s “winter White House.”

Baker said she figured with Mar a Lago booked for 25 events this season, Trump was going to skip his winter visits because of the tight security that surrounds him.

But that’s evidently not going to be the case, she said.

In fact, Trump now is expected to visit Palm Beach again this coming weekend.

Greene noted that Trump likes spending all holidays, such as Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s, at Mar a Lago, as well as his winter visits. “He loves it here,” Greene said.

So being president of the United States won’t change Trump’s routine.

Going forward, Greene said Palm Beach officials and the Secret Service need a better plan: “You can’t shut down a town for four to eight years,” he said.

Indeed, even into Monday morning, before Trump left for MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, getting around still was difficult.

Greene said it took him 45 minutes to cross the bridge Monday to take his son to school in West Palm Beach.

One bright spot to the weekend: Greene said he lives close enough to Mar a Lago to skip the traffic when he attended the Red Cross ball Saturday night.

“I walked,” he said.