It’s been more than two years since the iconic Corner Store in West Palm Beach abruptly closed after selling for $2 million to a limited liability corporation with a New York address.
The quirky Old Florida shop where Palm Beach elite mingled with the beer-buying masses has laid fallow since the purchase, even as a retail renaissance buzzes around it .
On prime real estate at the foot of the Southern Boulevard bridge — the main gateway to the tony island ― the only official clue to its future is an August 2023 query to the City of West Palm Beach about whether its zoning would allow for a restaurant .
It does. And the neighborhood is eager to know the fate of the half-century-old building that started life as a kind of space-age convenience store where shoppers would drive up and order groceries via a primitive computer.
The unusual circle-shaped shop is not in a historic district and is not historically designated. That means despite its nostalgia, it can be demolished.
Richard Pinsky, president of the South End Neighborhood Association, or SENA, said he’s not concerned about preserving the building at 250 Southern Blvd.
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“It is a cute building, but the value to the neighborhood is to have something beneficial there that services the south end,” Pinsky said. “The bait-and-tackle store was a really great service. Everyone went to the Corner Store.”
Former owner Robert Lamelas, whose family bought the Corner Store in 1976 when the computerized shopping idea bombed, stocked an eclectic selection of merchandise from single-can malt beverages to high-end wine. It attracted Palm Beachers making a pit stop for Dom Perignon on their way home from the airport, and anglers buying live bait. It was a neighborhood lifeline for quick propane tank refills. Cigar store Indians stood guard outside.
By the time Lamelas sold the Corner Store in the second year of the pandemic, its name had been embellished with Berto's Bait and Tackle on a sign that today is held together with ratchet straps.
"I think there is some benefit to saving a piece of history in the community," said Douglas Elliman Palm Beach Realtor Michael Melear. "It's prime real estate."
The intersection of Olive Avenue and Southern Boulevard has experienced a makeover since the pandemic that added businesses catering to the well-heeled.
A streamlined Mint Eco Car Wash is open on the west side of Olive Avenue, and the historic First Federal Savings and Loan building on the north side of Southern has been transformed into an elegant 7-Eleven convenience store and gas station — probably one of the few 7-Eleven's with an atrium lit by a mid-Century chandelier .
A Palm Beach-based furniture store called Amour Leserene moved into the old 7-Eleven along Southern, transforming a ratty building into a sleek showroom for modern and minimalistic decor. Next door, a dingy self-serve laundromat is now a chic boutique charcuterie store called Apricot & Olive.
“We think this is such a great location, and because of the bridge, we have so much traffic. It was a no-brainer,” said Josef Huainigg, CEO and founder of Amour Leserene. “If you told me this could be a location for a luxury furniture store a few years ago, I would have said ‘no way.’ ”
In addition to the traffic from Palm Beach, the area is between two popular neighborhoods with historic communities to its north, and the burgeoning South of Southern Boulevard, or SoSo , community to its south.
Melear said the popularity of SoSo was exemplified in the sale this month of a 68-year-old ranch-style home for $4.85 million. The deal was $150,000 over the asking price and $3.7 million more than what the previous owner bought it for in 2019.
The new owner plans to demolish the $4.85 million house and build new.
“It’s in the center of two to three great neighborhoods,” Melear said about the Corner Store.
The 2021 sale of the Corner Store was for a total of 0.43 acres that includes an adjacent home.
Evan Speiser of West Palm Beach oversees the LLC that bought the building. The zoning query to the city was made by Jupiter resident Alex Melillo, whose social-media pages describe him as an entrepreneur and CEO of CHIDO, a flavored drink of tequila and sparkling water. Speiser declined comment for this story but said plans for the property are underway.
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Pinsky said he would be OK with a restaurant on the land but with the caveat that there be no entrance or exit off Olive Avenue.
Mint Eco Car Wash opened its new entrance this spring, which alleviates a years-long problem of cars lining up and snarling traffic on South Olive and Southern. The car wash bought an adjacent duplex and razed it to accommodate the new entrance.
“We finally fixed the car wash, and that seems to be working well, so we don’t want to jump from the frying pan into the fire with another business that wants to use Olive,” Pinsky said. “Whatever the Corner Store ends up being, we should be included in the design and discussions on how it will impact the south end.”
Kimberly Miller is a journalist for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA Today Network of Florida. She covers real estate and how growth affects South Florida's environment. Subscribe to The Dirt for a weekly real estate roundup. If you have news tips, please send them to kmiller@pbpost.com. Help support our local journalism; subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: West Palm Beach's iconic Corner Store is prime real estate in burgeoning SoSo neighborhood
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