After three years of delays and shifting plans, the 120-acre Lotis Wellington multi-use development along Wellington’s main commercial corridor crossed a major approval threshold with a revamped proposal that includes 165 one-bedroom apartments instead of what was once pitched as senior housing.
Tweaks including an expanded public park and more medical office space set the stage for a 4-1 Wellington Village Council vote in support of the project on Wednesday, Jan. 3. That opens the door to 372 housing units, down slightly from 378 earlier, on the site west of State Road 7 and half a mile north of Forest Hill Blvd.
All of it is slated to be built around touted amenities open to the general public, including a lake with a trail, a 36-hole Popstroke miniature golf course, restaurants including Lazy Dog and Cooper’s Hawk, offices, shops and a daycare facility.
Vice Mayor Michael Napoleone said he was once a no vote, but now thinks the village can use housing that caters to single workers or couples not immediately seeking a large home. Wellington also needs additional office space, he said.
Single-bedroom apartments are not likely to add to school crowding, because few of those residents tend to have children living with them, he said.
“My thinking on this has evolved,” he said. “Having a park and a dog park right next to a restaurant that hosts dogs [Lazy Dog] is a good, smart use of that project.”
Councilman Michael Drahos, who cast the lone dissenting vote, said he does not see a one-acre park as sufficient reason to allow so many one-bedroom apartments, especially given that the Tuttle Royale development nearby at SR 7 and Southern Blvd. will provide comparable housing. He said he plans to live in Wellington for the rest of his life, and wonders what the project will look like in 15 years.
“I don’t want to drive past it and say, ‘I’m responsible for that, because the developer came to me and said it’s more convenient,’” Drahos said.
Councilwoman Tanya Siskind acknowledged that she and others were initially concerned at the shift in plans away from senior housing.
“But I think this has become something that will benefit Wellington,” she said. “We wish the delays had not happened, but I don’t want to see this space sitting there in turmoil and not being constructed for much longer.”
Councilman John McGovern said the density is still more than he would like to see, but he thinks residents do want the restaurants and entertainment options. He offered “a begrudging yes.”
Sticking points involved the southern half of the project known as Lotis 1, where close to half the housing will be one-bedroom apartments. That represented a distinct change from the project approved three years earlier, which featured a heavy emphasis on assisted and independent living for senior citizens.
The original vision stalled amid the pandemic and changing market conditions, developers said. Proposals shifted to include apartments as small as 680 square feet, couched as helping meet a market need for workers near Wellington Regional Medical Center. These will be priced at what the market will bear and will not be tied to income or other factors in what are sometimes called “workforce housing” programs. Council members postponed final approval in December to talk more about it.
Since last month, a proposed public park space near the middle of Lotis 1 nearly doubled to 1.15 acres after developers reconfigured their plans. The area would include an event space, a dog park and a cypress stand, all connected to commercial areas and a trail around the lake.
“I feel like that’s an improvement,” Mayor Anne Gerwig said. “I was looking for that green space that attracts the community into the center of it.”
It supports the restaurants and commercial areas and makes it different from a strip center,” she said.
Medical office space expanded to 60,000 square feet, up from an original 40,000, by putting a full third story on two designated buildings. In addition, Lotis 1 is set to feature 48,000 square feet of combined restaurant and retail, and 16,700 square feet of professional office space.
Over the last three years, developers said their original plans ran into hurdles as the pandemic hit, financing grew tighter and several senior-care facilities that opened in the region suppressed occupancy rates in that sector.
A big market need that has only grown, they say, is housing for younger or single workers often feeling priced out of traditional homes in the area.
“Trends are to build units that are a little smaller in size because people are becoming a little more cost sensitive as inflation has hit, as costs have gone up for everybody,” said Jim Gielda, representing the Lotis Group.
The average household age in Wellington is 41 and trending lower, younger than many other parts of Palm Beach County, according to market research he cited.
About 56 percent of the village population is working age (20 to 65 years old), he said. Almost 25 percent are single-person households, which Gielda said he found surprising.
In December, the council approved the northern half of the project, Lotis 2. Housing there includes 100 single-family homes and 72 townhomes that occupants would buy. It also has 8,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space, and about 1,000 square feet of general office space.
In Lotis 1, the focus is on rentals. Of these, 165 units would be one-bedroom apartments, 112 would be two-bedroom units, and the latest plans now call for 95 three-bedroom structures, an increase from earlier submittals.
Conditions for approval negotiated with the village represent attempts to make sure that residential construction does not plow ahead as commercial sites languish.
Among those stipulations are that building permits for at least 40,000 square feet of commercial and office space must be obtained before residential permits are issued. Also, work must begin on slabs and utility hook-ups for certain commercial buildings by March 31, 2024, or other permits will be put on hold.
Lotis officials said they have every indication that commercial tenants remain anxious to get started, from anticipated restaurants to the Popstroke mini-golf course, which has marketing ties to famed golfer Tiger Woods.
Still, it’s up to those businesses to follow through on actually building and operating there, and Wellington staff has advised that the village cannot tie Lotis approval to the involvement of particular brand-name firms.
