During the Gilded Age, the oil tycoon Henry Flagler carved a path of development from St. Augustine, Fla., down to the Florida Keys. He built both the railroad that would shuttle people down the coast and the luxury hotels they’d stay in, transforming what had been sparsely populated agricultural land into a major tourism destination, and establishing the town of Palm Beach.
While Palm Beach was designed for the rich and famous, Flagler built a separate city, West Palm Beach, across the Intracoastal Waterway, to house the laborers who served them. More than a century later, the developer and billionaire Stephen Ross is carrying Flagler’s torch with a project that’s equally ambitious: to rebuild the working-class city, almost entirely on his own.
After reshaping New York City a decade ago with the 28-acre Hudson Yards development on the West Side of Manhattan, Mr. Ross, 86, is making a $10 billion bet that he can turn West Palm Beach, a city of around 130,000 residents, into one of the country’s premiere business hubs. His aim is to build the offices that companies want to lease, plus the housing, schools, hospitals and entertainment that their executives will seek.
“I wanted to do something that nobody else had ever done. I saw all the possibilities and, obviously, no competition because no one was thinking that way,” said Mr. Ross, chairman and chief executive of Related Ross, a venture he launched for his Florida ambitions. He also acknowledged another motivation: “I can’t stay retired.”
Mr. Ross’s campaign has divided some residents, even as he has paired his development push with community initiatives.
