Palm Beach County Developer Proceeds With Condos
What condo glut?
Bradley Deckelbaum and his father, Gordon, are developing Gramercy Court, a 168-unit condominium on North Flagler Drive across from Currie Park in West Palm Beach.
They’re unswayed by recent doomsday predictions for the South Florida housing market and are enthusiastic about the future.
“We still think people want to live on the waterfront,” Bradley said. “We’ve got the perfect location and the perfect design.”
Architect Oscar Garcia’s design is definitely different from the, excess of supply of all those new vacant high-rise towers along Flagler Drive.
“We took the basic concept of a high-rise - a tall, confining box - threw away the middle and expanded what was left,” said Gordon, whose Bellaria project on the oceanfront site of former WPBR radio in Palm Beach recently sold out.
The first occupants have started moving in.
“I should say, ‘Everyone’s decorator has moved in,’” Bradley said.
Back to West Palm Beach. After they tossed out the middle of the Gramercy Court building, the resulting courtyard is huge: the size of a football field, Bradley said.
“Like the fountain plaza in European villages, we’ve made our courtyard large enough and inviting enough - with fountains, gardens, shade trees, cascades and seating - that it becomes everyone’s back yard and meeting place,” he said.
They think that’s a big part of what will distinguish the place from other options seekers of Florida mortgage loans have.
Gordon Deckelbaum, principal of Premier Flagler Ltd. in Dania Beach, has more than 30 years of experience as a builder in South Florida.
He said he drew on the lessons of those years to give Gramercy Court residents “a true at-home experience from the moment you pull in off the street.”
And he does mean residents.
“We sell to the end user,” Bradley said emphatically. “No one is confined to a tiny balcony and elevator greetings,” he said.
The lower-height buildings allow for rooftop pools, a yoga garden and a rooftop grill and lounge.
The sales office at 2501 N. Flagler Drive opened a month ago. And here’s something that might account for part of Bradley’s optimism:
“We’ve already sold our most expensive unit,” he said.
Prices range from $300,000 for a one-bedroom condo - a fairly affordable Florida home loan sum - to $2.2 million for penthouses. There are traditional condos and three- or four-story townhouses.
“Once you see it, you want to say, ‘Why didn’t someone do this before?’” dad Gordon said.
That’s good news. Such confidence in the condo market, a project proceeding instead of developers paying back deposits (or being sued for them), which is all too common in this Florida mortgage climate, is a positive shift.
SOURCE: Palm Beach Post
