“Million Dollar Listing” star Ryan Serhant sells Florida condo
Former “Million Dollar Listing New York” star Ryan Serhant is representing La Fontana condominium in West Palm Beach, which is up for sale.
- The owners are hoping the prime waterfront location will attract a developer to demolish and rebuild.
- A previous deal fell through with a developer who wanted to purchase La Fontana and the neighboring Portofino building together.
- Rising costs, including a pending fire safety mandate, are motivating factors for selling.
Owners at the waterfront La Fontana condominium in West Palm Beach, Florida are putting their entire 140-unit building up for sale after failing to seal deals with two billionaire developers.
They’ve recruited former “Million Dollar Listing New York” star Ryan Serhant and his firm to represent the 64-year-old building with the idea it would be demolished and replaced by new construction.
The address, 2800 N. Flagler Drive, is an attractive location just north of bustling downtown West Palm Beach and sitting directly on the Intracoastal Waterway with nearly three acres of land. It’s two miles south of the Lake Worth Inlet, also known as the Palm Beach Inlet, and next to Currie Park, which is currently undergoing a $35 million renovation.
La Fontana’s association board had previously considered asking for $225 million for the building but there’s no sale price set on the current listing, which is being handled off market.
“It’s not the building, it’s the land,” said La Fontana board President Paul Moreno. “The general consensus is it will be knocked down and something else will be built.”
Moreno said the building is current on inspections and in compliance with state safety legislation. But a pending state fire safety mandate to install a pricey new “engineered life safety system” helped convince some La Fontana owners to sell.
“We’re not desperate,” Moreno said. “But the sprinklers are a ton of work and a lot of money.”
La Fontana has been courted by developer Al Adelson and saw some interest from the city’s dominant developer, Related Ross, according to Moreno.
But Adelson was adamant that he wanted a package deal of La Fontana and its 56-year-old neighbor building Portofino, where there currently aren’t enough residents willing to sell. Adelson was offering $150 million for each building. The purchase would have given him a waterfront footprint of about 5.5 acres.
Moreno said Ross was looking at a longer timeline for purchase that was “not in compliance” with what the board wanted.
Because La Fontana is a co-op — where owners purchase shares in a corporation that owns the entire building — it needs 80% of residents willing to sell. Portofino is a traditional condominium. That means it is governed by rules that say a sale must be approved by 80% of unit owners, but if 5% or more vote no, they can block the sale and another vote can’t happen for two years.
“Our owners are pretty content here,” said Portofino board president Michelle Alber. “We feel like we have a little slice of heaven and if you look at the prices of new construction on the water, it’s unobtainable for most of our owners.”
Cynthia Witter bought her unit in Portofino for $218,000 in 2003. She also owns a unit at La Fontana that she paid $135,000 for, also in 2003.
The cheapest waterfront new construction condominiums in West Palm Beach are at least $1 million. Even with a hefty payout from a developer, it would be a stretch for many Portofino and La Fontana owners to buy a new unit and keep up with association fees and taxes.
Still, Witter said she’s ready to sell both of her units.
“I think it’s an opportunity and my own personal opinion is these units aren’t going to go up in value,” she said. “If La Fontana gets knocked down and starts building, it’s going to be awful at Portofino.”
Along North Flagler Drive there are at least seven new condominium projects planned or already under construction. Some are as tall as 28 stories, with one trying to go to 31 stories.
Christian Prakas, a founding partner of Serhant’s Delray Beach office who is helping market La Fontana, said owners there are smart to sell now before the market is saturated with new construction.
Serhant also already has someone working on getting city code changes to allow for a taller building on the site.
“This is one of the most valuable spots on North Flagler because it’s actually on the water, not across from the water, and has riparian rights, making boat slips possible,” Prakas said.
While condo sales in which the entire building agrees to sell were uncommon in the past, that may change with new Surfside safety rules, higher insurance rates and aging retirees. Prakas said this is the first whole building sale Serhant has done in South Florida, although it has brokered similar deals in New York.
“I think we are going to see a massive flood of these coming to the market in the next 10 years as the baby boomers are passing away and their heirs will not want to carry these condos with rising costs and high assessments,” Prakas said.
Alber, the Portofino board president, emphasized that while the building is not actively for sale, owners would be willing to entertain offers.
“Who knows what might come our way,” she said.
Kimberly Miller is a journalist for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA Today Network of Florida. She covers real estate, weather, and the environment. Subscribe to The Dirt for a weekly real estate roundup. If you have news tips, please send them to kmiller@pbpost.com. Help support our local journalism, subscribe today.
