Anca Maria

A $2.5 million garage changes the conversation about who’s buying in West Palm Beach.

Porsche Design and Newgard are planning 22 deeded car studios at 2500 N. Florida Mango Road, with opening planned for 2028. At 2,700 - 6,000 square feet, some are bigger than the homes most people live in.

For collectors, that could mean choosing a home for its location and lifestyle, without ruling it out because the cars won’t fit. And you don’t need to own a Porsche.

Would you give up having your collection downstairs if it meant buying the house you actually wanted?

Palm Beach County just approved a $26 million deal tied to a new 400-room Convention Center hotel.

But the bigger story is downtown West Palm Beach..and the 97-year bet behind it.

The Convention Center expansion is expected to increase nearby economic activity by 57%. Yet the area is already losing events because it lacks enough walkable hotel rooms.

More rooms could mean more conventions, visitors, spending, and demand for nearby real estate.

This hotel is just one piece of a much larger transformation—one that could shape downtown West Palm Beach for the next 97 years.

The developer behind The Bristol is back🤩…but this time he’s making a very different bet.

The Berkeley brings 193 luxury residences to Australian Avenue overlooking Clear Lake, with pricing starting around $2.5M.

It’s a much larger project, in a location most people wouldn’t automatically associate with West Palm’s ultra-luxury market.

But after what this developer accomplished with The Bristol, I think the more interesting question is: what does he see here that everyone else doesn’t yet?

A 157% increase in water and sewer connection costs is now at the center of a lawsuit in Riviera Beach.

The dispute comes down to a surprisingly important distinction: is this an impact fee or a water and sewer connection fee? Florida limits how quickly certain impact fees can increase ..but water and sewer connection fees are specifically excluded from those rules.

For this 315-unit project, the new charges total about $2.6 million ..roughly $1.6 million more than under the previous rates.

Now a judge may have to decide which rules actually apply.

🤔They’re moving the last little 💯 year old house off this block… and then doing basically nothing with the land for at least five years.

That might actually be the most interesting part of this whole story.

Downtown West Palm Beach clearly isn’t done changing yet.

More house. More land. But everything you want is east.

That’s always been the trade-off of living farther west in Palm Beach County.

But that’s starting to change — and Stephen Ross’s new 71-acre Village Landing on 441 is one reason why.

Meanwhile, communities like Amara are still offering new construction on larger lots at prices that are hard to replicate farther east.

Thinking about moving here? I toured the entire community, homes and amenities on my YouTube:

⚪️ https://youtu.be/ove1LplNOGw?is=Vk9z9dxT7bdi1wsj

⚪️Eight-story zoning. A proposed 25-story tower.

Jeff Greene wants to preserve the old fire station at Datura and Dixie, then build 23 stories above it using mass timber.

The reason this can even be proposed comes down to Florida’s Live Local Act — and one detail buyers around growing downtowns should understand: what gets approved within a mile can matter almost as much as the zoning directly next door.

That can affect future density, views and what you’re ultimately willing to pay for a property.

Would this change what you’d pay to live nearby?

🤓West Palm Beach confirmed it: you can start building permit review with your contractor listed as TBD.

For larger projects, you may also be able to overlap building review with site plan approval.

The key isn’t submitting early. It’s knowing which processes can safely run in parallel…and potentially saving weeks.

THE MALL ISN’T DYING. IT’S CHANGING.

The old Sears at The Gardens Mall was almost 150,000 SF.

What’s replacing it? A proposed 140,000-SF Dick’s House of Sport with a climbing wall, golf simulators, batting cages, VR sports and an 18,500-SF outdoor field.

And here’s the part that matters: the mall is also proposing another 47,000 SF of retail around it.

Retail isn’t disappearing. The strategy is changing.

The experience gets you there. The stores keep you shopping.

While everyone’s talking about relationships, I’m over here looking at dirt. 😂

‼️Something I’ve been noticing lately:

I’ve seen a few properties sit on the market for months while plans and permits were being processed. Then, as approvals got closer, the owners started looking at the same property differently.

In more than one case, permits got approved and the property was pulled off the market altogether.

👉🏻One thing I’ve learned: when buying land, don’t just ask what the property is worth. Ask where it stands in the approval process. The answer may tell you more about the seller’s motivation than the asking price ever will.