West Palm Beach’ssix-year struggle to get a billionaire to build an office tower on its most prominent undeveloped parcel just got longer.
City leaders voted 4-to-2 on Sept. 28 to extend the deadline for real estate mogul Charles Cohen to build a 25-story office-and-retail complex planned for the so-called “tent site” downtown, at the corner of Okeechobee Boulevard and South Dixie Highway.
The 17-month extension pushes the deadline for completion of the West Palm Point project from mid-2027 to January 2029. If finished on schedule, the project will have taken nearly nine years since the city leased the land to Cohen in April 2020.
Frustrated city leaders expressed their disappointment with Cohen, whose real estate empire has faced significant financial
struggles in recent years. But they concluded that allowing his development company to continue building would be the quickest path to completion.
Cohen’s representatives pushed back against criticism from Mayor Keith James, who this month accused Cohen of “gaslighting” the city and called his company’s performance “totally unacceptable.”
Attorney Brian Seymour acknowledged that Cohen’s financial struggles had played a role in West Palm Point's delays.
Cohen’s company lost several properties after defaulting on a $535 million loan in 2024. Last year, a lender filed a foreclosure lawsuit on the West Palm Point project and accused Cohen's company of failing to pay back a $10 million preconstruction loan.
The lender dismissed the suit the following month.
But Seymour told commissioners that the project was also stalled by slow city approval of the project’s design, as well as unforeseen delays involving permits from the state Department of Transportation and the South Florida Water Management District.
Now, he said, “we just want to finish this project.”
“Things have continued and you've seen the site rise,” Seymour said. “So, yes, it's complicated. Yes, there have been issues. Yes, there have been delays. No one's denying that we have the money ready to go.”
Seymour said that Cohen has invested $30 million of his own money into the project, and another investment group, Lendlease, now plans to invest $350 million.
The city, which owns the land, notified Cohen’s company this year that it was in default on its 49-year lease.
Under the new agreement to extend the deadline, the company will start making rent payments to the city of about $1 million a year starting in September 2027, then $5 million a year beginning in January 2028.
Sitting as the Community Redevelopment Agency, James and Commissioner Christy Fox voted against the deadline extension.
The four commissioners who voted for it indicated they were doing so more out of practical considerations than satisfaction with the project's current state of affairs.
Commissioner Joe Peduzzi said that the 17-month extension was five months more than the extension CRA officials were negotiating with Cohen’s company before the company said it needed more time.
“Five months in and of itself doesn't sound too bad,” he said, “but I think if we're looking at the whole thing, it looks a little more bleak to me.”
Andrew Marra is a reporter at The Palm Beach Post. Reach him at amarra@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: West Palm gives ‘tent site’ builder more time as he vows to do better
