Butters Group won zoning approval for plans to build a pair of two-story light-industrial buildings instead of a 100-foot-tall office tower in the Park at Broken Sound area in Boca Raton.
Coconut Creek-based Butters Group, led by president Malcolm Butters, plans to build two 35,800-square-foot buildings at 1150 Northwest Broken Sound Parkway.
The property’s previous owner, New York-based Mutual of America Life Insurance Company, received approval in February of last year for a 157,900-square-foot office building and a six-level parking garage on the eastern side of the 11.7-acre tract.
Ram Realty Advisors, a Palm Beach Gardens-based real estate investment company led by Casey Cummings, is planning a seven-story, 287-unit apartment building on the western side. Plans call for 243 market-rate units, 29 affordable units and 15 workforce units, plus 2,000 square feet of retail and a parking garage.
Mutual of America sold the property for nearly $24 million in two November transactions.
An affiliate of Ram paid $16.9 million, or nearly $3.6 million per acre, for the 4.75-acre western portion, records show. It has a 71,000-square-foot office building constructed in 1984 that is slated to be demolished.
A Butters affiliate paid just under $6.9 million for the 6.8-acre eastern portion, records show. At least half of each building would be for office space, and the firm expects to attract tenants such as building contractors, software engineers and research and development firms to the development.
Butters said new flex industrial office buildings are in high demand in Boca Raton, particularly among tech and pharmaceutical companies.
The average annual asking rent for an office services industrial building in southern Palm Beach County was $19.94 per square foot in the first quarter, according to Colliers. By comparison, the average asking rent for a warehouse distribution building in that area was $18.25 per square foot.
The vacancy rate for office-service industrial properties was 4.6 percent in southern Palm Beach County, while 7.2 percent of warehouse distribution space was empty.
City staff recommended banning box trucks and similar vehicles from the property once the project was finished. But Butters said tenants would occasionally need those vehicles to move materials in and out of their properties. However, the bays will be too small to be used for distribution, he said.
“This will not be an Amazon distribution facility. This is built for the small user,” Butters said.
The site plan change was approved unanimously by the Boca Raton’s Planning and Zoning Board and still requires city council approval.
Elsewhere in Boca Raton, Butters is co-developing a 25-court pickleball and padel facility with New York-based CityPickle. The 100,000-square-foot racquet center is slated to be finished later this fall, according to CityPickle’s website.
As a general contractor, Butters is building an office and distribution hub for Hoerbiger Corporation of America on 14.2 acres of land in Delray Beach that Butters sold the Swiss energy component manufacturer for $20 million last year.
Ram Realty Advisors paid $53 million for The Shoppes at Jupiter, a197,000-square-foot shopping plaza about 40 miles north of Boca Raton last summer.
