Years of planning, bolstered by a strong economy, has created a commercial building boom in the Wellington area, with a number of commercial construction sites in various stages of completion across the village, spanning the gamut from healthcare and banking to retail and hospitality.
Many of the projects went through months of review by village officials over the past two years before getting underway.
The Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital at Memorial Pediatric Specialty Center, located at 3315 State Road 7, is making progress. It’s located on the west side of the street, just south of Palomino Drive.
The signage at the site says the 30,000-square-foot facility will open in 2018, and will be the sole tenant of the Wellington Parc Commercial Center property.
This will be a satellite location for the main Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Broward County. The main hospital has 224 beds and is part of the Memorial Healthcare System.
“We already treat many patients from Palm Beach County, and the new office brings the hospital’s pediatric services closer to home,” spokeswoman Kerting Baldwin said.
This move by the Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital (www.jdch.com) to venture into Palm Beach County is following a regional and national trend of entering new markets to gain more patients.
According to published reports, in the past several years, Nicklaus (Miami) Children’s Hospital and Cleveland Clinic Florida have opened facilities in Palm Beach County, while Mount Sinai Hospital of New York has an affiliation with a local provider and New York University’s Langone Medical Center has explored entering the market.
The Children’s Hospital at Palms West and the Palm Beach Children’s Hospital are among the area’s more established providers of pediatric inpatient care.
The new Fairfield Inn & Suites near the Mall at Wellington Green is also coming out of the ground, with the foundation and first-floor support walls and roof complete.
Birch Development is building the 109-room hotel, which will be half regular rooms and half suites. The hotel will be located at 2155 Wellington Green Drive, behind the Wellington Green Square plaza off Forest Hill Blvd.
It is located next to Palm Tran’s park-and-ride lot, which was reduced in size to make way for the new hotel.
In March of last year, the council approved the project with some design modifications and restrictions on full kitchens in the suites. Wellington Hospitality — the owners of the nearby Hampton Inn — objected to building what will be the second hotel in the village.
Kaluz Restaurant is just around the corner from the hotel site at 2025 Wellington Green Drive, and its construction is nearly complete.
There is signage saying the upscale restaurant serving New American cuisine is now hiring staff. Get information on jobs by e-mailing wellingtonhr@kaluzrestaurant.com.
Arka Grill Company West LLC will own the restaurant in the location previously occupied by Buca di Beppo, which closed in 2015. That building was torn down to make way for Kaluz, which also operates a restaurant on the waterfront in Fort Lauderdale. Learn more at www.kaluzrestaurant.com.
After years of planning, Provident Jewelry is just about ready to open the doors of its new store in Wellington. Construction on the building — located at the southernmost end of the Wellington Town Square shopping plaza, facing South Shore Blvd. — is complete. A grand opening has been scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 25.
The new Provident Jewelry building is a significant investment in one of Wellington’s oldest shopping centers, and village officials hope it will be the beginning of updates and improvements to the entire plaza.
The new Provident location is the inspiration for the rest of the refurbishment of Wellington Town Square, which includes blue awnings and tan walls.
The Wellington store, located at 11924 W. Forest Hill Blvd., Suite 30, is one of seven operated by the full-service jewelry and watch retailer.
For more information, visit www.providentjewelry.com.
Finally, the foundation, walls and roof on the new First Bank of the Palm Beaches building in Wellington Plaza are now complete. This will be the first branch location for the bank, which is based in West Palm Beach.
First Bank launched in 2006, but was hit hard by the real estate downturn in South Florida. In late 2010, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. ordered First Bank of the Palm Beaches to raise capital and overhaul management, ushering in longtime local banker Jay Shearouse as both president and chief executive officer.
He started at Fidelity Federal, a bank started by his father in the 1950s, and became one of the biggest banks in Palm Beach County before being bought by National City and later PNC.
Shearouse wants to replicate the local, small-town, “customer first” approach, and has filled his management team with former Fidelity Federal executives.
The vast majority of deposits in Palm Beach County are held by out-of-state banks, and First Bank of the Palm Beaches offers an alternative, Shearouse added. To learn more, visit www.firstbankpb.bank.
