Village Place (Twin City Mall) – R&R Realty

The site of the former Twin City Mall is located at the southwest corner of Northlake and US-1. The historic site is actually split between the Village of North Palm Beach, being to the east of the Publix Plaza, and Lake Park, being the Publix Plaza and to the west. Thus the name. In April 2022 the land, that is mostly in the Village of North Palm Beach (68-43-42-21-29-007-0020, 68-43-42-21-29-001-0020, 68-43-42-21-00-001-0010, 36-43-42-21-29-007-0030, 36-43-42-21-00-000-3040) was acquired by NP Devland Holdings LLC , an affiliate of Cypress Real Estate, for 19M and is being redeveloped as “Village Place.”

These are the changes to the Village zoning code and Comprensive Plan.

According to the 8 January 2024 Village PZA Board Agenda, a meeting which was canceled, and is now rescheduled (AGENDA) for 8 May 2024 in the NPB Village council chambers.

And in the traffic study also in the 8 Jan 2024 PZA Board backup materials the site will have…

1,575,851 SF of space with…
1080 multi family dwelling units.
206 55+ age restricted dwelling units.
A 222 room hotel BUT they reserve the right to make this multi family dwelling units as well IF they can not find a suitable hotelier.

A few metrics on this…

1080+206+222 = 1508 units
19M/13.155/36 = $40,120 per unit. This is what the zoning in place when they bought the land allowed for, 24 market rate units per acre plus 12 units per acre (with 6 of those as workforce housing) in a commercial FLU designation as a “mixed use” development. Note that just 8.3% for the total FAR distribution they are requesting if for retail or commercial space.
19M/13.155/48 = $30,090 per unit. This is what they should have gotten IF the Village Council had followed the April or even the May 2019 recommendations of Dover Kohl who was hired to produce a form based zoning code for both US-1 AND THIS SITE which implemented the 2016 Village Master Plan. Dover Kohl was even paid extra for this site to coordinate the Village efforts with Lake Park.
At the April and then the May 2019 joint Village council/planning commission workshop Dover Kohl recommended what would be in compliance with the Village Master Plan. This would be to allow 36 units per acre as market rate unit density plus another 12 units per acre in a mixed use development with half, or 6, of those dedicated to workforce housing. As for height, Dover Kohl recommended 4 stories (about 50′) WITHOUT a plaza. Or 6 stories (about 75′) IF the developer provided a plaza. TOPS 48 units/acre just like Lake Park allows BUT the Village got some workforce housing. Tops 75′ tall buildings but the Village got a public plaza.
BUT the Village Council did not follow the recommendations of Dover Kohl. They did not adopt a form based zoning code for this district. What they did do is that at first reading on 9 March 2023 and then on second read on 13 July 2023 the residential density cap was removed and a maximum Floor Area Ratio (FAR) of 2.75 was adopted. With this change they abandoned the form based code recommended by the Village Master Plan and adopted Floor Area Ratio (FAR) based code. A VERY different type of code. And the Village council exempted this site from the typical maximum residential density caps, thus there are NONE. That’s right, no residential density cap for this site. Since the then current Comprehensive Plan regulations allowed for 24 units/acre and had a bonus of 12 units per acre IF workforce housing is provided then in removing this they removed that requirement for any workforce housing. Thus 100 % of this development is market rate units.
This new section of the zoning code is for the C-3 district which is just this corner in the Village and the PUD section for the this C-3 was amended but it ONLY applies 5+, 7 1/2+ or 10+ acre parcels in this corner.
And they amended the Village Comprehensive Plan as well to acommodate these zoning code changes. (Note, the link above in the 2021 version and it does NOT include the updated sections to the Comp Plan, which are HERE in the backup materials.)
Note as well that since more than 80% of the land in this PUD is in the Village that the North Palm and the Lake Park code states that the Village ordinance governs it’s development.
When the developer bought the property they were entitled to 13.155*36 = 473.6 units. They are now proposing 1508 new units, PLUS the commercial space PLUS all the required parking.
All those units and WITHOUT any workforce housing being provided NOR any impact fees being paid.
Note that the Lake Park Comprehensive Plan and zoning code section allows in their C-3 zoning district a 2.0 FAR, 48 units/acre. The Village is 2.75 and UNLIMITED residential density. In Lake Park, the height is dependent upon what building type is proposed, but tops out at 12 stories and under 160′ at the Twin City site. On the Village side it’s 14 stories and 175.’
For comparision, Juno Beach caps residential density at 22 units/acre. Jupiter caps residential density in a PUD at 15 units/acre. Palm Beach Gardens limits density to 12 units/acre in a PUD and “High Density” in NPB was less than 22 units per acre untill 2020.

Under the code changes adopted 13 July 2023, they are proposing as much as 1,575,851 SF of Floor Area is allowed and the code defines this as…

WOW! 1,575,851 SF of air-conditioned leasable or saleable square feet.

The Palm Beach Gardens Mall is 1.4 M SF.
1.596/2.75 => 58%, 914,566 SF of the 1,575,851 will be rental units.
0.229/2.75 => 8.33% will be retail/commercial

The Council also changed the maximum building height from 50′ (which is still what it is OUTSIDE of a PUD in the C-3) to allow as much as 175′ in one…

So, a maximum of 9 stories and 120′ buildings along US-1 (the concrete power poles are +/- 70′) and 14 stories or 175′ buildings at the interior locations to basically the roof line. The Nautilus building in Lake Park is 250′ to the roof and 17 “stories.” But when they say 14 stories, what did this code written by the developer allow as a “story” for this site? Dover Kohl had some very specific ideas on stories which the Village adopted for buildings along US-1 but those were not followed here. Similar to the Nautilus building, this is what the new code defines as a story…

Supposedly this project will add 2236 NEW residents. There are none there now and in the last 2020 census the Village averaged 2.05 residents per unit. 1508 units is more like 3300 new occupants. In 2010 the Village had a population of 12,015. By 2020 it had grown to 13,160. This one development will add at LEAST (2236/13160) = 17% (or as much as 3k/13160 = 22.8%) to the 2020 population of the Village.
The TCRPC report compiled for the Village in December 2020 assumed a 1% natural growth in the population plus another 0.25% due to the (then) new code changes. Note that this TCRPC report is based upon a 3 May 2019 memorandum (NOTE this was just prior to the last joint VC-PC workshop noted above on 13 May 2019) from Dover Kohl (see page 166 of the TCRPC report to read this memorandum) in which they assumed that the first floor would be commercial space and that US-1 would be built out at 24 units an acre with the Twin City site built at 36 units/acre. First, because the Village changed this and has since refused to fix the definition of a mixed use development we got 200 Yacht Club Drive, a “mixed use” development with 1 commercial space and 147 apartments. The Twin City is proposed to have just (0.229/2.75) 8.33% of the 1.575M SF as retail/commercial. The density is off as well as Now US-1 is 36 (24+12) units per acre and the Twin City is as much as 114.5 units/acre. This 0.25% growth rate assumed by the TCRPC in support of the reduction of lanes as result of new development appears to have been WAY underestimated.
From 2010 to 2020 the census figures show that the Village added 1k residents. Rough check on what TCRPC assumed but this is about 0.8% annual growth. 1% is thus slightly “conservative”.
So again, this TCRPC report assumed that, with no code changes, the Village would add 1% per year or about 1377 new residents in a 10 year period.
200 YCD was approved in 2023 at 147 units, so about 294 new residents.
At the end of a presumed 10 year phase in of this site (so not including what is proposed on the Lake Park side of the border) the Village could have 13,160+1,377+294+3000 (Twin City in NPB)=17,831
Over the next 10 years the Village could add ABOUT 4671, almost 5k, new residents IF NO other new projects are approved.
And, as was pointed out to the VC and PC, this scale of development may, in the near term anyway, take away from any other development along US-1. Basically, the market will only “absorb” so many new units each year and this development will be phased in to provide all of them.

The timeline…

On 7 June 2022 The Lake Park version of the changes to their C-3 Zoning Code section are presented to the NPB Planning Commission.
On 9 June 2022 The Lake Park version of the changes to their C-3 Zoning Code section are presented to the NPB Village Council.
On 14 July 2022 – At the last meeting of the VC before the previous Village Manager took a new job in Boca Raton, this is on the agenda for “discussion”. It’s the last item on the agenda at 10 PM in iddle of summer with no backup materials provided. Nader Salour spoke for the developer Cypress Real Estate Advisors whose team presented this powerpoint presentation.
On 11 October 2022 Tim Hullihan spoke to the Planning Commission.
On 1 November 2022 the code and Comp Plan changes are discussed at the Planning Commission.
On 14 November 2022 the code and Comp Plan changes are the subject of a Village Council Workshop.
On 6 December 2022 the code and Comp Plan changes are discussed at the Planning Commission.
On 14 February 2023 the code and Comp Plan changes are discussed at the Planning Commission.
On 9 March 2023 the code and Comp Plan changes are adopted by the Village Council at a “first reading”. The Comp Plan changes were then sent to the State DEO for Review.
On 2 May 2023 the the code and Comp Plan changes are reviewed by the Village Planning Commission in response to comments made by FDOT: “However, the use of FAR as a density regulation may not clearly define the number of allowable units on a given parcel of land, which could lead to increased trips and impact future long range transportation planning. The proposed methodology for providing development flexibility also inhibits service providers from determining the level of infrastructure and services that may be needed to service development at the level of service standards adopted by the Village.” Basically one can not plan for growth when you have no idea what that growth will be.
On 13 July 2023 the code and Comp Plan changes are adopted by the Village Council on “second reading.” State DEO review.
There is a thread regarding this on NextDoor.