Related Ross pushes past West Palm into Boca and Wellington

Related Ross says it intends to buy the Boca Raton Innovation Campus, the 1.7 million-square-foot former IBM complex at 5000 T-Rex Avenue, in what would be Stephen Ross’s first Boca Raton acquisition. No contract or price has been disclosed, and the deal is still in negotiation. It follows Village Landing, the 71-acre mixed-use project Related Ross unveiled in May on Wellington’s K-Park site, and together the two moves spread the West Palm Beach bet across Palm Beach County.

Why it matters

For nine years the Ross thesis was a single hub. That hub is now financed to the hilt, with a $772 million Ares-led construction loan on 10 and 15 CityPlace, the largest ever recorded in Florida. What the Boca and Wellington moves add is a spoke strategy, and for developers the consequence is comps. Submarkets that priced off local buyers are about to get an institutional bid setting the top of the range.

The site-selection read matters more than the headline. Both targets are large, single-control parcels with entitlements already worked, one a legacy corporate campus and one a village-owned tract. That is what a buyer of this size can absorb. Ross’s framing is blunt: “We are strictly focusing all of our attention in Palm Beach County.”

The numbers

BRiC covers 123 acres and is held by a joint venture of CP Group, Rialto, DRA Advisors and Las Olas Capital Advisors. It traded for $320.2 million in December 2021, about $188 a foot, after CP Group and Rialto paid $179.3 million in 2018, about $105. The current owners already have a conversion plan on file for 1,243 residences, 125,000 square feet of retail, 85,000 square feet of medical office and a 140-room hotel.

Wellington shows the land reset. The village bought K-Park in 2003 for $8.5 million, roughly $120,000 an acre. The January agreements split it, with Related Ross at $885,714 an acre on the east tract and school operator ElevateEd at $457,143 on the west. When ElevateEd withdrew, Related Ross took all 71 acres for $46.3 million, cutting its blended basis to about $652,000 an acre.

What’s next

Watch whether the BRiC intent converts to a contract, and at what number against that 2021 trade. In Wellington, a fall groundbreaking would be Related Ross’s first vertical start outside West Palm Beach. More South Florida coverage.