DEVELOPMENT |
||||
|
partners in real estate, trends in and around its“ home base” made the jump into the Nora project an appealing one.
“ We were attracted to do something in West Palm Beach because of the massive demographic shifts that had slowly started before COVID but were certainly accelerated by COVID,” said Born, who— post surgical residency— famously jettisoned a career in medicine in the 80s to instead pursue real estate. [ There’ s been ] an enormous migration from the Northeast— a lot of it New York based— into the area; major business owners buying major estates on Palm Beach Island, moving divisions of their offices; and then followed by legions of young professionals to work in the area’ s hedge funds, insurance companies, other financial services.”“ It seemed to be a natural shift into the kind of neighborhood area that we’ re comfortable with, we’ re familiar with, having done so many projects in New York,” he continued.“ What we’ re actually building is a neighborhood. We’ re trying to accelerate or jumpstart the urbanization of West Palm Beach into a sophisticated environment that New York has always represented, that Palm Beach has represented for the super-rich but not for the fairly affluent. West Palm Beach is now becoming that kind of neighborhood.”
PALM OF THEIR HAND Emerging in two phases via both
|
adaptive reuse of warehouse / industrial buildings as well as new-builds, The Nora District, along North Railroad Ave., will be pedestrian-friendly and encompass retail, restaurants, residential, office, hospitality and wellness offerings and the flagship The Nora Hotel, BD Hotels’ first new-construction project outside of New York.
Though BD Hotels is wellknown for transitioning iconic properties into hotels, Born explained there was nothing existing at the site that could have been turned into a hotel, just a series of one- and twostory industrial buildings and modest homes running east of the railroad tracks. It wasn’ t a bad neighborhood, Born said; rather, a“ sleepy” one, he called it. The industrial part was largely vacant, but the residential part was largely occupied. North of that were several plots of empty land so they decided to buy everything they could that was adjacent to it. Place Projects and NDT, ultimately, assembled 16 acres of land, said Born, adding that the entire Nora District project is about two-million-squarefeet [ and ] the entire project to build out will cost more than a billion dollars.
Born said Wheelock Street Capital, with which his firm partnered on revamping the iconic Hotel Chelsea in Manhattan, asked BD Hotels to specifically develop the signature Nora Hotel. BD Hotels is a minor investor in the district, but substantial partners in the hotel element,
|
A rendering of a standard room and bathroom at the upcoming Nora Hotel.
which it’ s leading— from design, development, ownership and operations.
The hotel is slated to open in August 2026 and coincides with BD Hotels 40th year in business. The debut of the 201-room property will unveil Born’ s vision for what he is characterizing as a“ four-plusstar hotel,” and which became a passion project for him in terms of creating a design story that delivers an elegant and serene experience for guests and the community.
BD initially grappled with the design approach.“ We first looked at doing something in brick that might look like a
|
project we may have done in New York, [ but ] that seemed out of place in West Palm Beach,” Born said, before looking at and considering more contemporary glass, modern structures. Out of frustration more than anything else, Born went analog, taking a page out of Home Economics class. With the aid of a copy machine, scissors and tape, he pasted together a building he envisioned [ architect ] Addison Mizner may have built more than a 100 years ago.“ To be a classic Mediterranean Palm Beach-y style building [ that ] I thought was really appropriate,” Born said.( He layered cut-up |
|
54 hotelsmag. com July / August 2025 |