BDT & MSD Partners’ proposal for an eight-story condominium and a three-story fitness center on the grounds of The Boca Raton won endorsement from Boca Raton’s Planning and Zoning Board this week.
The development will replace the luxury resort’s golf maintenance facility with a 76-unit multifamily highrise and a 31,700-square-foot fitness center on the 140-acre property.
The board unanimously recommended approval of zoning changes and master plan amendments, and the Boca Raton City Council will have final say on the proposed zoning changes.
Formerly known as the Boca Raton Resort & Club, and referred to by locals at The Boca Resort, The Boca Raton at 501 East Camino Real is a 100-year-old resort and private club with more than 1,000 hotel rooms, two golf courses, a beach club, a 32-slip marina, 200,000 square feet of meeting space, tennis and pickleball courts and more than a dozen restaurants and bars.
Its owner, New York-based merchant bank BDT & MSD Partners, has invested at least $75 million renovating and improving the resort. It is an active financier in South Florida, but this is its first major development in the region.
The proposed residential building is slated to be 100-feet tall and span 505,800 square feet. Units will average 2,500 square feet, said Jim Tilson, CEO of New York-based architecture and planning firm Hart Howerton Partners. Five-bedroom units will span 5,000 square feet, and penthouses will include outdoor spaces, Tilson said.
Construction will take up to three years once permits are obtained, said Bonnie Miskal, an attorney for The Boca Raton.
The 52-foot-tall fitness center will be three times the size of the existing one, Miskal said.
The city approved plans in December for a new 19,300-square-foot maintenance facility with three levels of parking built above it.
MSD Partners, an investment firm that was started by Dell Computers founder Michael Dell, paid $875 million for the Boca Raton Resort & Club in 2019. Two years later, MSD Partners renamed it The Boca Raton. It came under the ownership of BDT & MSD in 2023 when MSD merged with BDT & Company.
Boca Raton has attracted attention from developers in recent years as more affluent households move into the surrounding area.
Just a mile away from The Boca Raton, Key International and Wexford Real Estate Investors are planning to build Mr. C Residences Boca Raton, a proposed 12-story condo tower at 41 Southeast 4th Street where sales for the project’s 133 residences start at $1.7 million. And David Martin’s Terra and Palm Beach-based Frisbie Group plan to include 182 condo units as part of its 1.1-million-square-foot One Boca project if it gets approved in a referendum in March.
