PTM Partners, Hernandez Buy West Palm Beach Site for $11.5M

PTM Partners and Hernandez Development & Construction paid $11.5 million for three assembled parcels at 8530 Belvedere Rd. in West Palm Beach, according to a deal announcement and confirmed by Palm Beach County Property Appraiser records, which show a warranty deed recorded April 27 to an entity named HD PTM Belvedere Property LLC. The 8.11-acre site, previously approved for retail, a gas station and a daycare, is being repositioned for Palm Beach Commerce Center, a 93,556-square-foot Class A industrial building with 32-foot clear heights and 22 dock doors. Moushumi Chinni Ganguli of CityLights RE represented the buyer.

Why it matters

For developers underwriting industrial land in Miami and the rest of Palm Beach County, this trade sets a fresh dirt comp on a site that already had commercial entitlements, just for the wrong use. Converting a retail-and-daycare approval into industrial is faster and cheaper than starting from raw land, and the multi-tenant design, with suites starting at 11,700 square feet, signals the buyers are underwriting smaller logistics and light-industrial users rather than a single big-box tenant. That is a bet on the same demand driver every recent Palm Beach County industrial trade has cited: vacancy stays tight even as new supply keeps coming online.

The numbers

The $11.5 million price against the county’s confirmed 8.1132 acres works out to about $1.42 million an acre, or roughly $32.54 per square foot of land. Spread across the planned 93,556-square-foot building, that is close to $123 per square foot in land cost alone before a single stud goes up, a basis that leaves real room for hard and soft costs only if achievable rents keep pace with West Palm Beach’s tight industrial vacancy. The building’s 32-foot clear heights and 22 dock doors put it squarely in the shallow-bay format that has carried most of this year’s Palm Beach County industrial demand.

What’s next

Watch whether Hernandez, serving as developer and general contractor, breaks ground before year end, and whether the $1.42 million-per-acre basis holds up the next time a comparable West Palm Beach industrial site trades. If PTM and Hernandez lease the smaller suites quickly, it will tell other developers sitting on similarly repositioned commercial land that the spec math on infill industrial still works even at this land cost.