Forest Development and RPC Land $270M For Luxury Condo Near West Palm – Commercial Observer

Forest Development and Dan Kodsi’s Royal Palm Companies scored one of South Florida’s largest construction loans this year, $269 million, for a luxury condo project north of West Palm Beach, Fla. 

The waterfront development, dubbed Nautilus 220, will feature 330 units across two 24-story towers with amenities, including a marina. The ground floor will offer retail space and the third floor will hold offices, which together will span 35,600 square feet. 

Located at 220 Lake Shore Drive, the mixed-use project sits along Federal Highway, facing the Intracoastal Waterway in Lake Park.

Boca Raton-based Forest Development assembled the 2.78-acre site between 2018 and 2020, paying $9.5 million in total. Now it has enlisted Royal Palm Companies, a developer best known for its Miami towers, Paramount and Legacy, to complete Nautilus 220.

Construction began in February and is slated to end by the summer of 2024. 

With prices for units ranging between $1 million and $4 million, the development is already 60 percent sold, according to a spokesperson for Forest Development.

Concord Summit Capital’s Justin Morrow and Kevin O’Grady arranged the financing from Fortress Investment Group. Luis Flores, Anthony Kang and Rick Carroll of the Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr law firm represented Forest Development in the transaction.

The project is the latest luxury development planned along the sleepy strip near West Palm Beach in response to wealthy Northerners relocating to Florida and a lack of inventory in Palm Beach, a ritzy island town nearby. 

Less than five miles south from Nautilus 220, the Related Group, Miami’s largest condo developer, is reportedly developing a Ritz-Cartlon-branded condo complex and a luxury rental property, which its former partners are suing over.

Other luxury condo towers under development in West Palm Beach include BGI Companies’ Alba Palm Beach as well as Two Roads Development and Alpha Blue Ventures’ Forté, for which the developers nabbed $82 million and $120 million in construction financing, respectively.  

Royal Palm Companies holds the title for the largest construction loan for a South Florida project, scoring $340 million last year for its Legacy tower in Downtown Miami.

Julia Echikson can be reached at jechikson@commercialobserver.com.