West Palm Beach Grows Up

If you haven’t been to West Palm Beach in the past several years… you haven’t been to West Palm Beach. Below are a few examples of how West Palm Beach is growing up — in many cases, quite literally.

The Square
Related Companies has been in the process of transforming the area once known as “CityPlace” into “a place in the city” for the past several years. The vision is for this former entertainment and shopping complex to become more of a neighborhood that also happens to have great shopping, dining, and entertainment. Two tall office towers are currently under construction on the former movie theater site.

NoRa
Construction is underway on NoRa (North Railroad Avenue), a district that will activate long-empty warehouses along downtown-adjacent train tracks with shops, restaurants, apartments, and office space — the $520 million end result will be similar to Miami’s Wynwood, but less gritty. It’s the city’s largest planned redevelopment since CityPlace. Nearby, also in the Currie Corridor, Northwood Square and a $30 million reimagining of Currie Park are also on the horizon.

Transit Village
While the Amtrak-TriRail-Greyhound station in downtown West Palm Beach is conveniently located, it is underutilized, but not for long — a mixed-use development with stations for trains, buses, and trolleys plus hotel, residential, retail, and office space is coming. Transit Village is a 10-acre, $1.3 billion intermodal transit hub that is planned to feature four towers and a Fern Street cut-through into downtown, bestowing big-city vibes on West Palm Beach.

Luxury office and residential towers
Take a drive through West Palm Beach and you’ll encounter more shiny new towers and towers-to-be than you can count on one hand. Some are Class-A office space, such as Related Co’s One Flagler and developer Charles Cohen’s West Palm Point, while many are luxury residential spaces to house all this demanding new workforce; some, like Jeff Greene’s One West Palm, are mixed-use projects with offices, hotel, and residential components. If you’re looking for somewhere ritzy to relocate, expect names like Olara, Alba, La Clara, Forté On Flagler, Tortoise One, and Ritz-Carlton Residences to come up in your search.

Skye Sherman is a freelance travel writer. She is a regular contributor to numerous publications including Travel + Leisure and Palm Beach Illustrated.