West Palm Gives Cohen Until 2029 and 30 Days to Close a $300M Loan
West Palm Beach gave Cohen until Jan. 1, 2029 on West Palm Point after two default letters, with 30 days to close a roughly $300M Lendlease loan.
West Palm Beach has given Cohen Brothers Realty until Jan. 1, 2029 to finish the stalled West Palm Point office tower at 850 S. Quadrille Blvd., and the developer has 30 days to close a roughly $300 million Lendlease construction loan, Hoodline reports. It is a three-year reprieve for a developer the city twice warned it was in default.
Why it matters
The 2.4-acre “tent site” was leased from the West Palm Beach Community Redevelopment Agency in 2020, and Hoodline reports the city sent default letters in November 2024 and February 2026. Instead of terminating, the city approved more time, which ties the tower’s fate to whether Cohen can close financing inside a month.
This is the decision we flagged on Sept. 28 in our story on Cohen’s extension request. That story described Lendlease capital that depended on a longer deadline. The 30-day clock now turns that dependency into a test. The rent terms matter too: Hoodline says Cohen will pay rent until construction is complete.
The numbers
Hoodline describes a 25-story, 400,000-square-foot tower with more than 11,000 square feet of retail, backed by a roughly $300 million Lendlease construction loan. It also reports a $180 million commercial permit issued in July 2026 and about 25 percent of the space pre-leased. The CRA’s Sept. 14 agenda had listed a June 24, 2027 contractual deadline and a developer schedule running to January 2029. Our earlier story cited Lendlease equity of $350 million and a 23-story tower, per the Palm Beach Post, so the loan size and story count differ by outlet. We could not retrieve the approved amendment itself.
What’s next
Watch for the loan closing within 30 days, recorded as a construction mortgage with the Palm Beach County clerk. If it does not close, the city’s leverage over the lease returns. We will update when the signed amendment or loan filing is public. For more, see our South Florida coverage.
On the record
What we checked ourselves, and where you can check it too.
- Public recordThe CRA's Sept. 14 agenda item on the second lease amendment put the contractual completion deadline at June 24, 2027 and recorded a developer schedule running to January 2029, the window the city has now approved.View the record on wpb.org
- Our coverageWe reported on Sept. 28 that Cohen was asking for the extension and that Lendlease's capital was tied to it; the city's approval and the 30-day loan deadline are the new developments.Read our earlier story →