The Related Ross real estate firm will buy, rather than lease, prime land owned by Family Church in West Palm Beach for construction of the planned Edgeworth luxury condominium complex.
A 2024 deal with the non-denominational church consisted of a 99-year lease on 4.6 acres of the church's 9.7-acre site at 1101 S. Flagler Drive.
Now, the arrangement has changed to a sale.
Although neither side disclosed the purchase price, the amount is expected to exceed the roughly $100 million lease agreement struck in 2024.
"Yes, we're paying a little more," Alex O'Connor, Related Ross vice president of development said on Oct. 2. "Family Church was interested in generating more funds to continue with all their projects."
During the past two years, demand for
the church's services, especially its schools, has grown even more than originally planned. This is due to the continued migration of people to Palm Beach County from other parts of the country and the interest many families have in a private Christian education for their children.
What will be built on the church land?
Family Church, the former First Baptist Church, operates Palm Beach Christian Academy, the preK-to-8th grade school.
Family Church Pastor Jimmy Scroggins said the revised agreement will provide the church with money needed to expand the West Palm Beach school. The new deal also allows the church to pursue new locations in growing communities such as Wellington, Westlake and North Palm Beach, Scroggins said.
"We are seizing our moment to advance the mission today while building for tomorrow," Scroggins said on Oct. 5. "We know that strong families create strong communities."
The two-tower Edgeworth complex will take up more than half of the church's 9.7-acre downtown property. The project does not touch the iconic church sanctuary on the site's northern edge.
The redo calls for Family Church's existing Palm Beach Christian Academy building to be torn down and rebuilt. In its place, a four-story, 142,000-square foot building, with a glass wall facing Flagler Drive, will be built.
The building will be large enough to accommodate classes up to the 8th grade, along with meeting and office space.
In addition, a parking garage featuring 400 spaces will replace the lost surface parking spots.
In 2023, church members voted to lease part of their West Palm Beach campus to Frisbie Group after fielding competitive bids from developers.
Frisbie Group, now Easton Street Capital, subsequently partnered with Related Ross, which now leads the project. West Palm Beach-based Related Ross is led by Miami Dolphins owner and Palm Beach billionaire Stephen Ross, the city's dominant real estate developer.
The original deal allowed the church to retain ownership of its prime downtown land for future generations. But with the church growing so fast, this sales plan allows Family Church to receive all its money within the next couple of months when the sales transaction is supposed to close, O'Connor said.
The lease deal, on the other hand, would have meant a final payment to Family Church in February 2028.
Related Ross originally planned to start pre-selling Edgeworth in 2027. But due to strong buyer interest in another Related Ross project, South Flagler House, the development firm moved up marketing plans and began taking sales reservations in March.
The Edgeworth complex will consist of 168 condominiums in two 28-story towers. The project will have 102 units in its north tower and 66 units in a south tower. Prices range from $5 million to $35 million per unit.
For that money, buyers will have private elevators and expansive water views. The towers will sit on a podium that will house 90,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor amenities. A private racquet club operated by Set Point Tennis also will be at the complex. The club will feature two Har-Tru tennis courts, one padel court and one pickleball court overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway and Palm Beach.
Edgeworth will be built just west of The Bristol, the ultra-luxury condominium that kicked off West Palm Beach's waterfront residential renaissance in 2019.
O'Connor denied market speculation the Family Church lease arrangement made some buyers wary, especially since other new waterview condos in West Palm Beach are being offered for sale. O'Connor said buyer interest in Edgeworth was so strong that within 90 days of starting pre-sales this year "we had several hundreds of millions of sales reservations."
A 99-year land lease for a condominium, while not unheard of, still is rare structure in South Florida, where land up until now has been plentiful. The arrangement is more commonly used in large cities such as New York or London.
Details of the Family Church deal to lease its parking lots
Family Church has had a presence in the city since 1901.
During the past 15 years, the church has been selling its prime downtown land to selected developers to pay for the church's expansion. This includes its downtown campus and numerous satellite campuses throughout South Florida.
One of the land sales was to the developer of The Bristol. The tower at 1100 S. Flagler Dr. is on the site of the church's former Chapel-by-the-Lake, an open-air worship space on the Intracoastal Waterway along Flagler Drive across from the church sanctuary.
In a 2024 interview, Scroggins said the Kohn Pedersen Fox architecture firm of New York will design the Edgeworth condominiums and school buildings to give the site a unified look.
It will be "one of the most beautiful and functional church campuses in the world," Scroggins said.
Alexandra Clough is a business writer at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at aclough@pbpost.com. X: @acloughpbp. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Related Ross, Family Church switch to West Palm land sale | Exclusive
