Related Ross Plans Their First Live Local Project, 191-Unit Development in West Palm Beach

• Related Ross wants to build an eight-story, 191-unit residential building on a 1.7-acre vacant site at 209 North Sapodilla Avenue near downtown West Palm Beach.
• The project marks the first Live Local Act proposal from billionaire developer Steve Ross, whose firm Related Ross has built an office and condo empire in the city.
• The plan expands on an earlier February proposal for a seven-story, 164-unit building and includes nine for-sale townhomes at affordable prices.

A Full-Circle Moment for Steve Ross

Steve Ross has spent more than five decades building a name in real estate, but this project marks a return to his roots. Ross got his start as an affordable housing developer over 50 years ago, and at 86, he's now applying Florida's Live Local Act to a site at 209 North Sapodilla Avenue in West Palm Beach. The move aligns with Ross's public position that the region's shortage of attainably priced housing is one of the top issues facing Palm Beach County. For a developer better known in recent years for luxury office towers and condo projects, the proposal signals a deliberate pivot back toward the kind of housing that first built his career.

What's Being Proposed

The plan calls for an eight-story building with 191 units on a 1.7-acre vacant parcel near downtown West Palm Beach. Nine of those units would be for-sale townhomes offered at affordable prices, while the rest of the building would be restricted to households earning between 30 percent and 80 percent of the area median income, which stands at $107,600 annually in Palm Beach County. That income threshold is notably tighter than what the Live Local Act itself requires, since the state law only mandates that below-market units serve tenants earning up to 120 percent of AMI. Under the legislation, at least 40 percent of a project's units must be set aside as workforce or affordable housing, meaning Related Ross's proposal goes well beyond the baseline requirement.

From Related Ross to City Review

The application, filed by Related Ross, recently came before the West Palm Beach Plans & Plats Review Committee, which heard the proposal but does not vote on it. Instead, the committee functions as a forum for city departments to weigh in and offer comments before the project moves forward. Because the development qualifies under the Live Local Act, Related Ross can bypass the public hearings and commission votes typically required for projects of this size, unless the company ends up seeking a variance. That streamlined path is one of the law's central incentives, alongside tax breaks and allowances for taller buildings with more density than local zoning would otherwise permit.

An Expanding Vision

This isn't the first version of the plan for the Sapodilla Avenue site. Related Ross initially proposed a seven-story building with 164 units back in February, and the latest filing bumps that up to eight stories and 191 units. The growth in scale suggests the developer is leaning further into the incentives the Live Local Act provides, using the added density and expedited approval process to make the project pencil out. With Ross positioning the development as part of a broader response to Palm Beach County's affordability crunch, the project will be one to watch as it moves through further city review.