Boom and bust

💘 Show some love today. Our Valentine for you: The latest on the old Panama Hattie’s site; Mr. Ponzi comes to Delray Beach; and 561 Insider: a breeze from Henry Flagler. Plus, a quiz answer.

The boom: Panama Hattie’s transformed into developer Dan Catalfumo’s Ritzy vision

The model at the sales gallery for the Ritz-Carlton Residences under development by Dan Catalfumo. (Photo: Joel Engelhardt/Stet)

Developer Dan Catalfumo’s conversion of the once-popular Panama Hattie’s restaurant and rum bar into a Ritz-Carlton-managed condo complex moves into a new stage Feb. 16 with the grand opening of a sales center in Palm Beach Gardens. The 106 condos are priced from $4.2 million to $7.2 million and the complex’s opening date is still more than two years away.

Why it matters? Big money: It’s rare for a developer to have 11 acres along the Intracoastal Waterway and it draws top-shelf spending, producing high property tax payments. It also completes the transformation of a beloved rum bar to a nearly entirely private high-end use.

Here are seven things to know about the Ritz-Carlton Residences Palm Beach Gardens:

• The entire development will be built atop a two-deck, 367-space parking garage. The site along PGA Boulevard slopes downward from Ellison Wilson Road to the Intracoastal Waterway, allowing Catalfumo to take advantage of the topography to build underground.

• Catalfumo built a new seawall 45 feet back from the old one, reducing the land size but increasing the marina size to allow 29 berths for yachts up to 75 feet long. He’ll operate the marina, while Ritz-Carlton will manage everything else on site from the fitness club to 24-hour security.

• It’s in the city of Palm Beach Gardens. In 2015, the city sued to block an earlier proposal, which went nowhere. Catalfumo paid $33 million in October 2021 to buy the site and expanded it southward. It’s now 11 acres. The original developer razed Panama Hattie’s in 2014.

• Catalfumo won permission to build last year from Palm Beach County but, making good on a promise to Palm Beach Gardens officials, allowed the city to annex the property, with a final vote in January. The result is a potential half-billion-dollar boost to the city’s tax base.

“A man’s word is a man’s word. We shook hands and said we were coming in and we have. Palm Beach Gardens is my place. It’s where I have grown up and I just wanted to say thank you.”

– Dan Catalfumo to the Palm Beach Gardens City Council Jan. 12.

• The City Council on Feb. 2 allowed eight more condos, from 98 to 106, and seven-story buildings instead of six. If those eight units sell for $6 million each, that approval alone could be worth $48 million to the city’s tax base.

• But some units are likely to go for more than $6 million. The highest pre-construction asking price is $7.2 million for a five-bedroom, 4½-bath, 5,000-square-foot condo. Aside from expansive Intracoastal views, condos from the fifth floor on up are likely to have ocean views. Douglas Elliman is handling sales.

• The sales gallery, with a large model of the three condo buildings wrapped around an infinity swimming pool, and a life-size sample bedroom, bathroom and kitchen featuring porcelain tile floors and quartz countertops, is at 4001 Design Center Drive. It’s next to Catalfumo’s headquarters and a fast-rising apartment building that Catalfumo ushered through City Council approval before selling in 2021 for $20 million to Richman Group. 

Read more: A pickleball court and a putting green.

The bust: Mr. Ponzi comes to Delray Beach

301 SE First Ave., Delray Beach, awaits its destiny. (Photo: Pat Beall/Stet)

Delray Beach’s long-delayed 301 Project — proposed luxury apartments and some workforce housing thrown in to sweeten the deal — may stay a weedy lot for a while longer. Its owners are busy in court. 

National Realty Investment Advisors, its 100 or so subsidiaries and executives raised $650 million from investors with smoke-and-mirrors enticements of double-digit returns on real estate deals in Florida, New York and Pennsylvania, federal prosecutors charge.

• Among them: 382 retirees who dipped into their savings to fork over a collective $94 million. 

It was an illusion. In a Ponzi-like scheme, new investors were largely paid with money from previous investors, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission, New Jersey Bureau of Securities and the Department of Justice. 

Who got the money? An antique dealer, a wife, an ex-wife, a romantic interest, state tax authorities and an unknown number of shops, hotels, and eateries along the Jersey Shore. Among others.

It isn’t the first fraud tussle. In a cease-and-desist order, the New Jersey Bureau of Securities said portfolio manager Thomas Salzano co-founded NRIA in 2006. It was the same year he agreed to a civil settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over a nationwide telecommunications scheme and seven years before he pled guilty in Louisiana to five counts of theft stemming from the same scheme.

That history would have been tough to spot. The group paid a reputation management team “hundreds of thousands of dollars” to whitewash the web of those complaints. And the feds say Salzano got his Louisiana conviction expunged in 2018. 

What’s next: In bankruptcy court, NRIA’s other Delray projects are front and center.

For more: Reporter John Pacenti dug into the charges, and those Delray properties, for The Coastal Star. 

For even more: The well-paid babysitter, disappearing into the Philippines and other strange footnotes of the NRIA saga.

561 Insider: A secret to downtown West Palm Beach’s magic

Downtown West Palm Beach’s Goldilocks location between Clear Lake and the Intracoastal Waterway.  (Photo: State Archives of Florida)

Carolyn, here, with our first 561 Insider, which is devoted to Palm Beach County charms and delights. 

I learned a neat and surprising (to me) fact from award-winning architect and history expert Rick Gonzalez about why there is often a pleasant breeze in downtown West Palm Beach.

The 48-block grid that Henry Flagler established in 1893 was designed to capture the cool air that flows between the Intracoastal Waterway and Clear Lake, Gonzalez said this month during a free presentation at the Mandel Public Library.

A city block in the historic downtown of Palm Beach County’s oldest city measures 600 feet (east-west) by 300 feet. It’s the ideal size and placement, he said, for the air (and pedestrians) to flow.

Find out more: Gonzalez, of REG Architects, has two more free history talks planned at the library, 411 Clematis St.

• “Placemaking in Palm Beach County with Historic Anchors” at 6:30 pm April 24

•  “A Visual Walking Tour of Clematis and Downtown West Palm Beach Historic Buildings” at 6:30 pm Aug. 28

Do you have some local insider info to share? Reply to this email, and tell us.

And the answer to last week’s quiz: Door No. 2

On the bright side: $817 a square foot appears to have been irrational exuberance. (Photo: Pat Beall/Stet)

Last week, we asked which of three Palm Beach County homes was originally listed for more than twice the square-foot cost of Mar-a-Lago.

Door No. 2, the two-bedroom, two-bath, was listed this year for $1.09 million, or $817 per square foot of living space.  Even after the asking price dropped by $200,000; the square foot price was a robust $476.

In 1985, Mar-a-Lago sold for a mere $320 per square foot.

• For some, the Door No. 2 price tag signals an overheated market heading for a slowdown. Not for spec builders. Palm Beach Post reporter Kimberly Miller found 14 high-end homes under construction, and no buyers in sight. Just rampant optimism. Read more here. (Some readers will encounter a paywall.)

In next week’s quiz: The worst thing a Palm Beach County surfer can do.

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Here’s a Valentine date idea. Check out the free Feb. 14 concert at Carlin Park’s Seabreeze Amphitheater in Jupiter. Pack a picnic or buy food and drinks at the concession. The lawn opens at 6 pm, and Chicago tribute band Solid Brass starts at 7.

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