Condo Closings Underway at Two Roads, Alpha Blue’s Forté on Flagler in West Palm Beach

As featured in THE REAL DEAL Real Estate News

Two Roads Development and Alpha Blue Ventures have begun closings for their newly completed Forté on Flagler condo project in West Palm Beach.

Records show the project at 1309 South Flagler Drive received its condo declaration earlier this summer, and closings began July 14. Flagler Residential LLC, an affiliate of Two Roads and Alpha Blue, has so far sold 12 units in the 25-story, 40-unit condo project. A total of 37 units were pre-sold, for a combined $289.1 million in sales volume, a spokesperson confirmed.

Designed by Arquitectonica with interiors by Jean-Louis Deniot, the tower has two units per floor that each span three or four bedrooms and 4,200 square feet. Amenities include a pool, fitness center, spa facilities, guest suites, private dining room, golf simulator, library and business center, its website shows.

Sales that have recorded so far total $74.6 million in volume. Here’s a look at some of the buyers:

• Fox News contributor Liz Peek dropped $5.8 million on unit 902, records show.
• Michael and Suzanne Ainslie bought unit 1102 for $6.1 million, according to records. Michael Ainslie was president and CEO of Sotheby’s Holdings from 1984 to 1994 and director at Lehman Brothers from 1996 until its 2008 bankruptcy, according to published reports. Suzanne Ainslie is an agent with Sotheby’s International Realty.
• Stephen E. Myers Sr., the owner of Myers Auto Group, bought unit 1401 for $5.9 million, records show. Myers Auto Group operates McLaren, Aston Martin, Jaguar and Land Rover dealerships in West Palm Beach.
• Forté 10 South and Forté 10 North, two Florida LLCs linked to hedge funder Ara Cohen, dropped a combined $10.6 million on units 1001 and 1002, according to property records. Cohen is co-founder of New York-based Knighthead Capital Management. Last year he was linked to the $51.6 million purchase of a lakefront home in Palm Beach.

The remaining units for sale include the 9,000-square-foot penthouse, which is asking $47.5 million. Christian Angle with Christian Angle Real Estate has the listing. John Reynolds with Douglas Elliman and Gary Pohrer with Serhant have the listings for two other units for sale, 2202 and 2302, which are asking $14.7 million and $15.3 million, respectively.

Two Roads is based in West Palm Beach and led by co-managing partners Reid Boren and Taylor Collins. Earlier this week, a partner in a Four Seasons Bahamas project sued the firm for $35 million, alleging breach of contract. Two Roads denies any wrongdoing.

Two Roads partnered with Marius Fortelni and Scott Maslin’s Alpha Blue to secure approvals for the West Palm project in 2019, but were met with pushback from locals. A West Palm Beach activist group sued unsuccessfully to block the project that year, the Palm Beach Post reported. The partners launched sales in 2020, just days before Covid shutdowns took effect. They scored a $121.5 million construction loan from Bank OZK for the project in 2021.

West Palm Beach has changed dramatically since then, Boren said.

“Certainly this is not the same community that we started construction in,” he said, noting the city’s pro-development swing. “The fact that I fought a lawsuit for over a year with an activist group that managed to hold us up, there’s no such thing now.”

The market growth means Boren and his partners achieved a much higher sellout volume than previously expected. Condos’ price per square foot started at over $1,000, and ended in the high $2,000s, he said.

The boom has also meant an influx of competition that wasn’t there pre-pandemic, he said. Developers have more than 6,000 units in the pipeline in West Palm Beach. That changes the calculus for more projects going forward, Boren said.

“We would look very carefully at each new project and make sure there’s a need for it,” he said.