Billionaire Michael Dell’s BDT & MSD Partners provided an additional $55 million loan to OKO Group and Cain International for their planned Palm Beach condos.
The loan will fund the predevelopment phase of the three-building project planned for 2720 and 2730 South Ocean Boulevard in Palm Beach, a spokesperson confirmed. OKO and Cain bought the 4.9-acre site of the former Ambassador and Edgewater hotels for $146.6 million in 2022, with a $105 million mortgage from Dell’s MSD Capital.
Dell is the founder and chairman of Dell Technologies. He has an estimated net worth of $132.6 billion. BDT & MSD is led by co-CEOs Byron Trott and Gregg Lemkau. The firm owns the nearby Boca Raton Resort and a minority stake in the Auberge Resorts Collection.
London-based Cain is a partnership between Todd Boehly’s Greenwich, Connecticut-based Eldridge Industries and Jonathan Goldstein. OKO is the Miami-based firm led by billionaire Vlad Doronin, who also owns the Aman hospitality empire.
After months of back-and-forth with Palm Beach’s notoriously challenging Architectural Review Commission, OKO and Cain received approval to move forward with their condo development and demolish the former hotels in October. The project is slated to span three five-story buildings totalling 41 units. The developers tapped OMA, the architecture firm led by Pritzker Prize winner Rem Koolhaas, to design the project. Interiors will be by Studio Sofield.
A representative for the project said it would be Aman-branded at an August meeting, but spokespeople for OKO and Cain have since said the condos will not sport Doronin’s prestige brand.
Pricing has not been released for the project, but sources say unit prices per square foot could top $5,000. That would make it one of the most expensive development projects in Palm Beach County.
OKO and Cain’s Palm Beach condos will be the first new construction condominium on the island in years. The site is part of a strip of aging condos at the South End of the island, where sources say residents are fielding buyout offers from developers. Across the water in West Palm Beach, a similar redevelopment of the waterfront is already underway, with thousands of units in development along Flagler Drive.
