WELLINGTON — Few properties in Palm Beach County’s western suburbs have drawn as much speculation in the past 15 years as K-Park in Wellington, which may soon become a mini-downtown with up to 500 residences, stores, shops and even a hotel.
The village owns the 70 acres off State Road 7 south of Forest Hill Boulevard and has cast about for the best way to develop it. Residents through the years have offered plenty of opinions, including a botanical garden. Some want it to stay the organic farm that it is today.
Wellington has agreed to sell K-Park in two parts, one to Related Ross — the developer of CityPlace in West Palm Beach — for the mini-downtown and the other to the founders of Education In Motion, a Singapore-based private school that would open its first U.S. campus there. The total price is about $47 million.
Here are five things to know about K-Park.
K-Park gets its name from the man who sold it to Wellington.
The K stands for “Kahlert.” The village bought K-Park in 2003 for $8.5 million from the family of Herb Kahlert, the former Palm Beach County engineer who through a family land trust owned multiple properties in the county, some of them along major roads.
It’s one of the most desirable sites in the State Route 7 corridor.
It’s just south of Forest Hill Boulevard and immediately south of the Mall at Wellington Green. It lies 10 miles southwest of downtown West Palm Beach, putting whatever is built there in the orbit of many of Palm Beach County’s newest, upper-income residents.
Wellington’s K-Park is 70 acres of vacant land at the corner of Stribling Way and State Road 7.
Wellington has talked about developing it for more than 10 years.
The first priority for K-Park after the village bought it in 2003 was recreation, but the village built parks and other sites elsewhere. Among the other projects proposed for it through the years were a complex for senior living, a Palm Beach State College campus, a research innovation center, a horse park and a botanical garden. At meetings in 2014 and 2015, residents favored keeping it as open space.
A local developer offered $7 million more to buy the property.
The Ward family developed the Village Green complex — home to Trader Joe’s and the Cleveland Clinic — just east of the K-Park site along State Road 7. Through its company, W & W VIII LLC, it offered Wellington $54 million for all of K-Park saying it wanted to bring a mix of stores, restaurants and residences to the property.
Wellington chose Related Ross instead, citing in part its reputation as an experienced, national builder. It also called the plan’s inclusion of the private school a plus for the project.
Its development could offer clues for the mall’s future.
The Mall at Wellington Green opened in October 2021. Some say it has aged poorly, losing anchor tenants such as Nordstrom, and is ripe for redevelopment. How Related Ross develops the stores, restaurants, hotels and residences it wants to bring to K-Park could influence the look and feel for whatever changes could happen at the mall.
Any redevelopment of the mall property remains years away. One factor that would make it slow to happen: Five different companies own different parts of the site.
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Valentina Palm covers Royal Palm Beach, Wellington, Greenacres, Palm Springs and other western communities in Palm Beach County for The Palm Beach Post. Email her at [email protected] and follow her on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, at @ValenPalmB. Support local journalism: Subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Related Ross’ new project: 5 things to know about K-Park in Wellington
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