Team reveals plan for intimate redo of Royal Poinciana Plaza

Its time for the 1957 Royal Poinciana Plaza to have a wow moment again, Samantha David told residents and others Tuesday at the Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach.

For six months, Smith and Moore Architects and Nievera Williams Landscape Architecture have worked with David, of Up Markets, to make that moment possible. Up Markets took a controlling leasehold interest in the John Volk-designed commercial plaza last August through a $22.5 million deal.

We very deliberately chose residential landscape and building architects with the hope that, (when) you drive up to this building, it feels like you are approaching the most beautiful home, David said. When you go on to the gardens, its someones garden and its cozy and its intimate and special.

The team showed its plan to revitalize the Regency-style plaza to the public for the first time Tuesday.

The keys, they said, are a major boost in landscaping to increase shade and visual appeal, a change in traffic flow and the restoring architectural elements lost over the years in piecemeal changes.

Windows and storefronts need to be restored to Volks original design and awnings should be the same style and color, according to Daniel Kahan, an architect with Smith and Moore.

What we are trying to do is strip away all of the unfortunate things that have happened to a great building since it was constructed. In a vacuum, each decision that has been made may have not been so terrible, but they werent made holistically and over the years they have amassed to something that really does a disservice to a great building, Kahan said.

Landscape architect Keith Williams said the plan would improve traffic flow by eliminating the entrance/exit on Cocoanut Row, adding a curb cut for an entrance/exit at the northeast corner of the property and a cut for two exit lanes on the southeast corner.

To reduce the asphalt on the massive property, those spots and the existing north-side entrance/exit would be paved with cast stone.

Sidewalks would shrink from 12.6 feet to 5 feet in width to provide room for palm trees and shrubs, and to increase the distance between parallel parking spaces next to the buildings and the first row of angled spaces, according to Williams.

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Team reveals plan for intimate redo of Royal Poinciana Plaza