Palm Beach Gardens draws high-profile developments

The 4,763-acre community was approved for 2,690 single-family homes, 960 age-restricted homes, 250 multifamily units, 1.8 million square feet of professional offices, 200,000 square feet of medical offices, 400,000 square feet of commercial space, and 300 hotel rooms. Through the end of January, 578 home building permits have been pulled and 193 sales have been closed, said Rosa Eckstein Schechter, general counsel and partner at Landstar, the master developer of Avenir.

Multiple homebuilders, including GL Homes, DiVosta, Toll Brothers and K. Hovnanian, are building within Avenir. FCI Residential purchased the multifamily development site.

In fact, Panther National developer Centaur Group recently sold six home lots for $18 million to custom homebuilder Ellish Builders.

Panther National CEO Frank Weed compares Avenir to the development of Weston, a community he worked on in the 1980s. Not only does it have large roads and a well-designed community, but Avenir includes a nature preserve with long trails. It’s the only new golf course community in Palm Beach County, he noted.

“We wanted to build something that doesn’t exist in Florida,” said Dominik Senn, the head of Centaur Group and a former professional skier. “The course is mainly for the people who live there and a few outside members. There will be a low number of tee times. There will only be 250 to 270 members, so it will be very exclusive.”

All of the luxury residential under development in Avenir will soon create opportunities for the neighborhood’s commercial sector to grow, Weed said.

Schechter said they plan to break ground on the town center by the end of this year. Progress is also being made on the health center component, which would be anchored by a 20-bed hospital by Jupiter Medical Center and UF Health.