Even The Breakers is worried about housing costs now, exploring apartments for its workers

WEST PALM BEACH — Perhaps no local business is more associated with Palm Beach luxury than The Breakers hotel, the palatial oceanfront institution founded by Henry Flagler more than a century ago.

But with the region squeezed by a housing shortage, the iconic hotel is exploring a foray into a different sort of accommodations — affordable housing for its employees.

The hotel’s parent company Flagler System, which with 2,400 employees is one of Palm Beach County’s largest employers, is discussing working with a land development company to plan a housing campus in West Palm Beach for its own workers, city records show.

City officials say the project would be Palm Beach County’s first-ever employer housing development and praised it as a needed strategy to create more housing for low- and medium-wage workers at a time when the city is being flooded with investment in luxury condos and homes.

“By creating dedicated housing for employees, this project ensures that essential workers can live near their workplace, reducing strain on the broader housing market and transportation,” a city memo to city commissioners reads. “As Breakers employees move into the new campus, existing affordable housing units they currently occupy will become available to other residents, helping to alleviate housing shortages for the community at large.”

Breakers building affordable housing for employees is ‘a great solution’

Area business leaders have warned in recent years that rising rents and home prices have made hiring and recruiting more difficult.

Employee housing is a strategy that has been used at luxury resorts in high-cost locales such as Hawaii, the Florida Keys and ski towns, said Suzanne Cabrera, president of the Housing Leadership Council of Palm Beach County.

But she said she was not aware of any other large employers who had taken such steps in Palm Beach County.

“I think it’s a great solution,” Cabrera said. “We want more companies to get involved, and this really takes it to the full extent. That would be great if they can work that out.”

The Breakers is one of Florida’s largest employers of temporary foreign workers. Federal records show that in September, it was approved for the hiring of 249 workers from overseas on temporary H-2B visas, the second-highest total in the state.

The potential project is still in its early stages, and details about how it might function were not known. But it came to light last week as city leaders agreed to negotiate to sell a city-owned land parcel for use in the project.

The 1.2-acre vacant lot at 2410 N. Australian Ave. sits north of Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard and Gaines Park. The county property appraiser estimates its market value as $332,000.

The Breakers declined to comment in detail. In a statement, a hotel spokesperson said that “as part of its ongoing labor strategy, The Breakers Palm Beach has been exploring workforce housing for the last few years. At this time, no final decisions have been made.”

The negotiations to acquire the property will be between the city and a company associated with Fritz Van der Grift, a former financial adviser for Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley Wealth Management who in 2021 founded VDG Partners Limited, an investment company.

In December Van der Grift’s company purchased two adjacent properties for a total of $4.5 million, county property records show.

Van de Grift told The Palm Beach Post that his company is “exploring workforce housing projects within our community” and was in talks with The Breakers, but that nothing had been finalized.

“We have approached The Breakers to be a potential partner, but no final decisions have been made,” he said via email.

The city memo said that the “Breakers Employee Housing Campus” would have to ensure that a “significant” number of the housing units built there are designated as affordable housing or workforce housing, meaning that rents would be capped at a certain level for at least 30 years.

Andrew Marra is a reporter at The Palm Beach Post. Reach him at amarra@pbpost.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Breakers hotel in Palm Beach exploring housing campus for its workers

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