Located at the Northwest intersection of Palmetto Park Avenue and A1A, this morbidly pink building tries to mask its frugal pompousness with silly design elements such as large concrete balls and oversized balustrades.

The building’s silly attempt at importance is just a small part of the problem. While the developer – Minneapolis-based “Opus Group” -- touted its prized location, upon closer inspection a new condo buyer is bound to be disappointed.

The building is not on the beach, but across from it -- on a very busy, and loud, intersection.

The unfortunate owners will have the calming sound of the waves drowned out by loud music and even noisier cars.

And, the beach is far from tranquil and quiet. It is a boisterous, busy and sometimes dirty. And at least one the building’s buyers – some of whom are paying close to $3 million (and who you think should know better) – has already started litigation against the developer.

One buyer, Irvling L “Irv” Slosberg, has reportedly sued because he claims the developer short-changed him on square footage. While this is possible, could it be that Slosberg realized he was paying a large sum of money, for an awful building, location, and apartment that turned out to be less than idyllic?   

As the building was completed quite a while ago, I realized the magazine was more than a few years old.

While the furniture in the store left me uninspired, that ad in the magazine left an impression on me. If for nothing else but its brashness.

Ocean Plaza is located in the Northern Broward County, Town of Deerfield Beach. The ad shows an older well dressed man embracing a well coiffed woman. The happy lady -- sporting a pearl bracelet -- is in an almost orgasmic glee.

Why is this couple so happy? The ad tell us, “We considered the Riviera, but we choose Deerfield Beach.”

I’m not sure what the marketers meant by “the Riviera,” but I suppose it referenced some fashionable port city in France, Italy, or tiny Monaco. 

Whatever they meant by “Riviera,” Deerfield Beach certainly ain’t it!

Yesterday, I drove East on Hillsboro Avenue to get to a friend’s Boca condo. Crossing the intracoastal, I immediately came upon Deerfield Beach’s economic and entertainment hub. The first building you hit is the lovely Comfort Inn, which is the proud home to fine dining establishments such as “Subway.” Nearby is the community’s upscale grocer -- a 7 Eleven. 

There is also live entertainment at Howard Johnson’s, which is arguably the toniest hotel in town. 

Say what you want about the French, but that country’s food never disappoints. And while Subway might offer five different types of yummy bread, I’d rather have a loaf of real French bread any day. 

And while 7 Eleven might have a refrigerated display case filled with a unhealthy variety of canned and bottled beers, West Central Italy alone has hundreds of wineries. (And, try getting into a restaurant in Monte Carlo without a jacket and a tie!) 

Deerfield Beach, is a conflicted town that, on one hand, welcomes new upscale condos, while at the same time embraces its working-class roots. 

Not an easy straddle. 

The crowds are mainly young, unpretentious, and a little rowdy. The town is so democratic that instead of building a huge condo near the beach – like every other town or city in South Florida – a parking garage was erected on prime real estate. Along that garage’s street level are commercial storefronts comprised mostly of no frills bars. 

Maybe that's why Ocean Plaza, and similar new Deerfield Beach condos, aren’t selling. For prices that go as high as $1.3 million, a prospective buyer can attain the privilege to see and hear kids getting loud, drunk, and sick.  

So, it’s no wonder few are willing to buy. (Besides, the condo is not directly on the sand, but rather behind public parking.) 

While Deerfield Beach is not “the Riviera,” even the true Riviera -- at least the French one -- has its problems. I was in Nice shortly after the most recent  French-Muslim riots and saw many torched  Peugeots. Outside the Negresco Hotel congregated unseemly characters and unattractive prostitutes (with whom the weak US dollar will not get you very far).

Overall, crime is up around Cannes-Nice, "hate acts" are up (especially against Jews), and, there are frequent union-organized pickets in several locations.

While in Nice, I thought I’d take a U.S. beach, any day. Even Deerfield Beach. 

Who knows? Maybe, some day, Deerfield Beach will become the "hot spot" developers envisioned, and Southern France will slip into further decline. Then, we might see desperate French marketers hawking local real estate with such tag lines as, “Sure, we considered Deerfield Beach, but we chose St. Tropez!”

Or maybe celebrities preaching to us about an environmentally conscious lifestyle, as they use their private jets to damage the environment.

Or maybe some religious figure or adherent preaching a temperate life while indulging in the very sins he wages against.

But developers. Well they are just plain greedy.

And, for some reason, we just accept that.

But, in fact, some developers are better than others, often cooperating with communities in which they build.

However, the most egregious and most environmentally destructive (at least in South Florida) are the clowns from the firm of Sieger Suarez (SS).

After destroying much of the fragile Florida coastline and irreplaceable marshlands, the firm has decided that they are going to do some good … In Auschwitz.

They have proposed a “sacred grounds” on the site of the notorious death camp. The SS has fought environmentalist, town councils, and the poor, to set new precedents in luxury condos, where they don’t belong.

Based on their previous indifference to communities, Poland better watch out.

If the SS could build condos in Auschwitz, they would.

To access SS’s website, please use the following link: http://www.siegersuarez.com/siegersuarez.profile.history.asp click on the projects link and follow the prompts to the "Sacred Grounds, Auschwitz."

What a nice name for a nice community filled with nice people.

Several weeks ago, while driving along South Florida's A1A, I happened upon a 43 acre, 488 unit, community, where the residents greeted me with waves and smiles as they sat on their front porches or sauntered the area.

It seems that everyone I encountered was smiling.  No, they looked elated.

Why?

Was it the prime location, with access both to the Atlantic Ocean and South Florida’s Intracoastal Waterway?

Maybe.

Was it that some of these people paid as little as $15,000 for these homes?

Maybe.

Or, is it because these folks have sold their trailer homes to Ocean Land Investments -- a developer -- for an average price of over one million dollars?

While the trailer park was aesthetically questionable, it was clean, quiet, and had reported no crime.  It generated little traffic on the road which bisected the town, was low density, and, of course, low rise.  (After all, how high can a trailer be?)

But, unfortunately, that is all going to change.

Ocean Land paid well over 500 million dollars for the town’s acquisition. And with this huge payout, the purchasing consortium is going to expect and demand significant changes to this humble town.

They are proposing 900 condos, a 300 room hotel, retail space, and, of course, time shares.

These new buildings, which are expected to be too tall and much too dense for the existing space, are going to place a huge burden on the neighboring infrastructure (roadways, sewers and drain systems), will increase traffic congestion, and will negatively impact the beach and already fragile ecosystem.

Working with unscrupulous public officials -- such as Palm Beach County Commissioner Bert Abramson, who has reportedly received significant “donations” from developers -- and local politicians who seems clueless or indifferent to environmental issues, this development will set a dangerous precedent for Palm Beach County Real Estate Hell.

COME ON IN! 

We welcome your comments and encourage you to share your experiences.  [Not everyone need spend their life in (real estate) hell.]

This particular group of homes, named after the tree-filled wildlife oasis it single-handedly destroyed, is located between two noisy intersections -- Yamato Road and Military Trail -- and many of those homes are priced at over 1.5 million dollars.

There you will find a guard-gated community with typical faux Mediterranean homes, featuring over 4000 square feet of open and uninspired floor plans, crowded onto small lots.

While The Preserve destroyed flora and fauna and thus decimated the area’s natural beauty, there is now new activity adjacent to this exclusive enclave. Recently, another new upscale and rather lavish community opened on The Preserve’s southern side. And now some of Boca Raton’s richest and swellest are moving in right next door.

These new neighbors reside mainly in two large buildings adorned with typical South Florida  fauxness. Columns, medallions, garlands, porticos, and all the excesses these residents have come to expect.

The buildings are even segregated, with Jewish folks on one side, Christians on the other. But there is no disharmony between the two groups. No fights, harsh words, or anti-neighborly incidents have been reported.

You see, these residents on the southern side are all – how should I put it – dead.  Yes, Boca Raton’s newest community of celebrated decadence and “excessive excess” is a cemetery and a mausoleum or, as the sales representatives like to call it, a “Memorial Park.”

So, the living residents of the The Preserve’s gated community, with their expensive homes that resulted in the needless death of South Florida’s indigenous wildlife, are living next to non-indigenous, lifeless Floridians, that might bring about the demise of the area’s property values.

Talk about real estate hell!

Homes over one million dollars with unobstructed views of a cemetery.

Should the possible devaluation of the area’s property values trigger eternal gloom, well, have no fear, you can always be interred feet from your dream home.

Somewhere, egrets, falcons, cranes and ibises are smiling.

It is about "Eden," an upscale, condominium development in Boca Raton, Florida that certainly has not lived up to any notion of paradise.

This condo was scheduled for completion years ago. Purchasers were excited about its great address and proximity to the beach. Eden is also located near local attractions such as Mizner Park (an upscale shopping and housing development complete with a fine regional museum and amphitheater).

The condo promised all the amenities a would-be buyer would love. A large, resort-style pool, club house, exercise room and all those bells and whistles developers promise.

A buyer at Eden was not just purchasing a condo, but a relaxed, vacation-like lifestyle which extended to the individual apartments. All totally new, with fine finishes and features such as over-sized bathrooms, wood floors, flexible floor plans, large closets, granite countertops. Everything new, everything beautiful, everything perfect.

As the sales brochures and in-house sales personnel informed prospective buyers: "You are purchasing Eden."

WELCOME TO REAL ESTATE HELL!

Unfortunately, none of the promises has materialized.

The poor purchasers -- unfortunate souls all -- have waited over two years for the developer, a company called Ceebraid-Signal, to complete their homes. These prospective owners have been more than patient, making calls to the developer, local newspapers, and politicians. Some have even hired attorneys.

While a few purchasers have moved in, most haven’t. And, as our picture shows, the bulk of the buildings remain uncladded shells.

What is most interesting is the company’s principal, a fellow by the name of Adam Schlesinger, stakes claim to this marketing doozy -- perhaps the most ambitious and ridiculous we have ever encountered.

And for that, Mr. Schlesinger is our nominee for "Developer from Hell."

A place with crooked developers, awful neighbors, bad zoning, ugly houses, town bureaucrats and unscrupulous contractors.

A deceitful place, that robs its occupants of its hopes and dreams.

We once got caught there, but got out.

Hopefully, we can help you avoid our mistakes.