Gardens Getting More Offices, Hotel, Parking Garage off PGA Boulevard

Two South Florida developers hope to transform a furniture hub into a “vibrant” office cluster on the south side of PGA Boulevard east of I-95.

Almost 200,000 square feet of new office space, a parking garage and a 111-room hotel will rise up at the PGA Professional and Design Center east of RCA Boulevard in the next three and a half years. TBC Corporation, a tire company, has its headquarters in a building at the corner of PGA and RCA Boulevards that was part of the original project.

Palm Beach Gardens City Council approved BBX Capital and Stiles Corporation’s revised development plans for the 30-acre site Thursday night. The amended plan for the site allows for about 100,000 additional square feet of development in total.

Project Planner Don Hearing said the renewed development of the site will create more workplaces in the city. He stressed the size of the floor plan in a new 60,000-square-foot, four-story office building.

“You can’t find a 15,000-square-foot floorplate anywhere in the city today, ‘cause they’re all full,” he said. “It’s very important that we have these opportunities, and that will provide for that.”

The developers will build two other 64,000-square-foot professional office buildings and a small, one-story medical building. Brock Development is a partner for the suite-style hotel. A minimal amount of retail space, such as sandwich shops or dry cleaners, remains part of the plan.

City officials praised the plan to recast the site as an employment center.

“Thanks for adding that Class A office space that we so desperately need in the Gardens,” Councilwoman Maria Marino said.

There’s room for a Tri-Rail platform on the east side of the property should the commuter rail service be extended north. The planned parking garage could be expanded to provide 199 more spaces for a Tri-Rail station if necessary, according to planning documents.

The revised plan allows the developers to convert two existing under-utilized buildings into professional office space if they can’t find furniture users, which have been difficult to recruit after the recession. The Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County had considered moving its headquarters to a former Robb & Stucky furniture building but decided it didn’t meet its needs.

The developers will be responsible for traffic improvements that include a dedicated eastbound right-turn lane on PGA Boulevard at RCA Boulevard in front of the Shell gas station.

They will also be responsible for creating a northbound right-turn lane on RCA Center Drive and Kyoto Gardens Drive and a southbound right-turn lane on RCA Center Drive and RCA Boulevard, said city Planner Peter Hofheinz.