Selling now in Palm Beach Gardens, FL
Avenir
3,900 homes on about 4,760 acres, with half the land left alone
Everyone quotes the 3,900. Almost nobody explains it. The city never approved 3,900 homes. It approved a traffic equivalent, and the community got to 3,900 by making 960 of them age restricted, because age-restricted homes generate fewer peak-hour trips. That one fact reframes the whole place. The second thing worth knowing before you tour: your clubhouse is owned by a unit of local government and billed on your tax bill, and one entire phase is excluded from it.
- Area
- Palm Beach Gardens, FL
- Approved
- 3,900 homes
- Acreage
- About 4,760
- Conservation
- 51 percent
At a glance
Avenir fast facts
What is published, and what you will have to ask for. The unpublished ones are the difference between the sticker price and what the house actually costs you every month.
- Area
- Palm Beach Gardens, Palm Beach County
- Jurisdiction
- City, not unincorporated county
- Size
- About 4,760 acres
- Approved for
- 3,900 homes
- Of those, age restricted
- 960, and that is the reason
- Land left as conservation
- 51 percent of the site
- Homes assessed as standing
- About 1,500
- Builders
- Eleven or more, not one
- District assessment
- About $3,300 to $9,300 a year
- Who owns the clubhouse
- The district, not an association
- Master association
- There isn't one
- Hurricane evacuation zone
- None mapped here
- Your parcel's assessment
- Ask before you contractGet pricing
- Current pricing and incentives
- Ask before you contractGet pricing
Figures come from the city's approved master plan and development order, its comprehensive plan future land use restrictions, the community district's engineer's report, adopted budget and audited financial statements, the county property appraiser's parcel and certified rate data, county emergency management and federal flood mapping, the school district's own attendance boundary data, the county and state road programs, and the state insurance regulator, all as of September 2026. Pricing and plans are as published by the builders and change frequently. All details are subject to change without notice.
Where it is
Western Palm Beach Gardens, north of Northlake Boulevard, entirely inside the city rather than in the unincorporated county. That distinction is worth money in both directions and we work it through below. Drive the commute and the school run yourself before you commit.
How to buy in Avenir without leaving money on the table
The person at the builder's sales desk works for the builder. You can have a Florida agent on your side instead, touring with you, reading the contract line by line, and pushing for every incentive, upgrade and closing-cost credit the builder will give. It costs you nothing: on new construction the builder already budgets your agent's fee whether you bring one or not. The one catch is timing. You usually need your own agent from the very first visit, or the builder will not recognise them and you lose it. Start here and we will set it up.
Set up a tourWhat a local would tell you
The approval is a traffic cap, and 960 age-restricted homes are how it was met
Every page about this community says 3,900 homes on 4,700 acres. None of them says where 3,900 came from, and the answer changes how you should read the place.
The city's comprehensive plan does not authorise a number of homes here. It authorises the traffic equivalent of 3,000 single family units and 250 multi-family units. The ordinance adopted in 2016 restated that as 3,250 dwelling units, which is why 3,250 is still quoted in places. Then, in December 2016, the city approved a master plan conversion and an increase in the number of residential units administratively, with no council ordinance, landing on the 2,690 conventional, 960 age restricted and 250 multi family that is the approved programme today.
The extra 650 homes exist because age-restricted homes generate fewer peak-hour trips and therefore convert inside the same traffic envelope. So roughly one home in four here is legally required to be age restricted. That is a condition of approval, not a marketing segment, and it is genuinely useful to know: it tells you what the community will look like at build-out, and it tells you that any future increase has to fit the same envelope rather than simply be asked for.
Second thing, and it will surprise you: your clubhouse belongs to a government. Both clubhouse parcels are titled to the community development district in the property appraiser's records. So the amenity is funded by a non-ad-valorem assessment on your November property tax bill, which is a statutory lien rather than an association invoice: about $1,431 a unit in operations plus $742 a year of clubhouse debt for the earlier phases.
And it is not levied on everyone. The district's own budget carries a footnote stating that one parcel, the economic development parcel, the town centre and all of the third phase, which includes Panther National, are not assessed for the clubhouse because they receive no special benefit. Read that plainly: a Panther National buyer does not pay for the community clubhouse and does not get it. Whatever amenity arrangement applies there is a separate private matter outside the district, and we could not obtain any recorded document describing it, so we are not going to tell you what it costs.
One honest limit on all of this. We verified the ordinance language from the district's engineer's report, which reproduces it verbatim, rather than from the city's own document system, which would not serve us the file. And we obtained no recorded declaration for any neighbourhood here, because the county clerk's records portal returned server errors on every search we tried. That is the single biggest gap on this page and we would rather name it than hide it.
So ask five things in writing before you contract: the full assessment schedule for your exact parcel, split into operations, clubhouse and debt; whether further bond issuance is contemplated for your phase; whether your neighbourhood is assessed for the clubhouse at all; your neighbourhood association's recorded declaration, budget and any capital contribution due at closing; and, if you are looking at Panther National, exactly what club or amenity obligation the recorded documents impose.
Get the assessment for your parcel, not the neighbourhood's
Annual totals here range from about $3,300 to about $9,300 depending on which neighbourhood you are standing in. We will get yours.
The record
Bond series stacked on bond series, and where your impact fee actually goes
The most under-communicated risk here is not the size of the assessment. It is the way it grows. Debt service per unit is fixed per bond series and does not escalate, which is the reassuring half. The other half is that new series get layered onto neighbourhoods that already carry one. One parcel picked up a new debt line of about $2,107 on top of its existing $3,522, which took that neighbourhood from roughly $4,313 a year to roughly $7,052 in a single year, an increase of about 63 per cent.
The cost of that borrowing has also changed sharply. Series issued in 2021 priced between about 2.25 and 3.4 per cent. Series issued in 2025 and 2026 priced between 7 and 9 per cent. So a home in a later neighbourhood carries materially more expensive debt than an identical home in an earlier one, for reasons that have nothing to do with the house. Total district debt outstanding at the last fiscal year end was about $234 million, with roughly $93 million more issued after year end.
Now something genuinely unusual, and it explains where your permit money goes. The district issued about $22.6 million of impact fee credit revenue bonds to finance on-site and off-site roadways. Its own audited note says, near enough verbatim, that the district does not impose or collect any impact fees, that those fees are collected by the county and the city, and that they are remitted to the district as improvement fees. In one year it collected about $5.8 million of those fees and prepaid about $9.2 million of the bonds. The adopted budget carries an improvement fee line on the revenue side and an identical bond payment line on the expenditure side.
In plain terms: the road impact fee paid at building permit on a new home here does not fund the county's general road programme. It comes back into this community's own district and retires bonds that paid for this community's own roads. The developer built the roads up front, took the credits, and turned them into a bond. That is not hidden, but it is not on any sales sheet either.
On governance, we would rather quote the district's auditor than characterise anything. As of the last fiscal year end, all of the board members are associated with the landowner and developer. The same audit records that the developer has agreed to fund the district's general operations and contributed about $10.5 million in a year with about $3.0 million still recorded as a receivable, that the district reimbursed the developer approximately $7.3 million for construction management and infrastructure and reimbursed a homebuilder about $309,000, and that the district's activity is dependent upon the continued involvement of the developers, the loss of which could have a material adverse effect. That is the auditor's language and it is normal for a district at this stage. The auditor reported no going-concern doubt.
Two figures we will not give you, because the district's own documents disagree with themselves. Its assessment methodology counts 105 more residential units than the approval permits, and its audited statements and its adopted budget state different original amounts for the same recent bond series. Both are the district's own paperwork. We flag it rather than average it.
What to ask for that is not published: the district's current assessment methodology report; a sample tax bill for a closed comparable in your neighbourhood showing every non-ad-valorem line; whether any further bond series is planned over your parcel; your neighbourhood association's recorded declaration and budget; and, for an age-restricted product, exactly what the age restriction requires and how it is enforced on resale.
The area
The city premium is smaller than it looks, and one road has design money only
Start with the tax comparison, because almost everyone gets it wrong in the same direction. The city millage is 5.0537, which looks like a large penalty against the unincorporated communities a few miles west. It is not. An unincorporated address in western Palm Beach County pays a county fire and rescue levy of 3.4581 mills that a city address does not, because the city runs its own fire department. Certified 2025 rates total about 17.86 mills here against about 16.27 unincorporated, so the real premium is roughly 1.60 mills, about $1,600 a year on a million dollars of taxable value, not the $5,054 the headline suggests. And note that the county library levy applies on both sides, so it is not part of the difference.
We are deliberately not giving you an all-in comparison, though. To do it honestly we would need the non-ad-valorem assessments charged by the improvement district that serves the unincorporated communities, and we could not obtain them. Millage alone flatters this community; adding its district assessment without adding the other side's makes it look far worse than it is. Get both or compare neither.
On hurricanes, the news is good and it is controlled. The county's evacuation layer returns no zone at this community, at a point in the main neighbourhoods and at a point in Panther National, and control queries on the coast correctly returned zones, so the negative is real. One caveat the county states itself: its data set does not include mapped areas of substandard housing or areas prone to flooding, so no zone means no surge-driven zone rather than a guarantee that no evacuation order will ever reach you.
On flooding, this is one of the cleaner answers we have published. All four points we sampled across the community returned results outside the special flood hazard area, and both federal map panels covering the community are typed as not printed, because the stated reason is that there are no special flood hazard areas on them. The panels are effective from October 2017. We also checked the letters of map change layer: none intersect any sampled point here, and the three in the wider area are all at unincorporated addresses outside this community. So no federal requirement to buy flood insurance on a conforming mortgage, though your lender and insurer will make their own determination on the specific lot.
On schools, we have an unusually solid answer because we queried the school district's own attendance boundary data directly rather than an aggregator. The assignments returned were Pierce Hammock Elementary, Osceola Creek Middle and Palm Beach Gardens High, and they were identical at all three points we sampled, so the whole community sits in one set of zones. Two caveats: the elementary boundary we queried is the newer school year while the middle and high boundaries are the prior one, and boundaries get redrawn. There is also a charter school operating inside the community, which is a choice rather than a zoned assignment.
On roads, separate what is funded from what is promised. Funded and under construction: the state highway reconstruction north of here, from four lanes to six, at about $148 million, started in 2024 with completion estimated late 2029. Funded in the county programme: Northlake Boulevard widening to six lanes in two segments, and design and right of way now with construction money three years out on a connecting boulevard. Then the one to hold onto. The Seminole Pratt Whitney Road extension, 2.6 miles to four lanes, carries about $2.8 million of design money and nothing at all for right of way, mitigation or construction across the entire five-year programme. One caveat: only the prior year's edition of that programme is published, so these figures may be a year stale.
On insurance, brace yourself. The state regulator puts the average Palm Beach County homeowners premium at about $6,412 including wind and $3,085 excluding wind, measured in late 2025. That is the second highest of any county in Florida behind only the Keys. It is a countywide average blending barrier-island property with new inland construction built to current code, so a new home this far inland should price better. Get a bindable quote on the specific address before your financing contingency expires.
What you need to know
Buying new construction with someone on your side
Representation is free and the timing is the catch, as above. Here it is worth more than usual for a reason that runs in your favour: this is a genuinely multi-builder community, which most large Florida master plans are not. From the property appraiser's ownership records, eleven or more separate builder and developer entities hold parcels inside the community. That means you can price comparable homesites against several companies inside the same gates, which is real negotiating leverage that only exists if someone works it for you.
The thing you most need read to you here is not the floor plan. It is the paperwork: a district assessment that lands on your tax bill as a lien that outranks an ordinary invoice, a clubhouse charge that some neighbourhoods pay and others are expressly excluded from, an age restriction on roughly a quarter of the homes, and a neighbourhood association declaration we could not read for you. That is a reading job for someone who is not paid by the seller.
Two things we will not claim. We obtained no recorded declaration for any neighbourhood, so nothing on this page describes what your specific covenants require. And we did not search Florida regulatory enforcement records or civil dockets for any builder here, so read the absence of any such note as unchecked, not clean. If that matters to you, ask and we will have it pulled properly rather than repeat a rumour.
The rest is the same everywhere and it is not complicated: hire your own independent inspector at pre-drywall, again at final walkthrough, and once more before the one-year warranty expires. Read the limited warranty booklet before you sign rather than after. And read what the purchase agreement says about completion timing, price changes before closing, and dispute resolution.
Subdiview is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Avenir Development, any homebuilder, any developer of Avenir, the City of Palm Beach Gardens, or Palm Beach County. The developer is identified here because it is the developer of this community, which is a statement of fact and not a representation of any relationship. Community names and marks are the property of their respective owners and are used for identification only. Subdiview is operated by a real estate broker licensed in Illinois. We are not your agent, we do not represent you, and we perform no real estate brokerage services in this state. No one at Subdiview is licensed in this state. If you join an interest list, your information is referred to a real estate professional licensed in the state where the property is located, who will contact you directly. We are compensated by that professional's brokerage, not by you. Pricing, plans, inventory, district, tax and approval details on this page carry the dates shown, are as published, proposed or reported rather than committed, and are subject to change without notice.
Questions and answers
Avenir FAQ
What is Avenir?
It is a very large master-planned community inside the City of Palm Beach Gardens, on roughly 4,760 acres of a former ranch in the western part of Palm Beach County. It is approved for 3,900 homes, and the striking number is what is not built: about 51 per cent of the net site, roughly 2,409 acres, is a conservation overlay, and the community provides about 28.8 per cent open space against a 20 per cent requirement and about 337 acres of upland preserve against 182 required. Alongside the homes the approval carries 400,000 square feet of commercial, 200,000 of medical office, 1.8 million of professional office, a 300-room hotel, a 55-acre park, a 60-acre civic and recreation parcel, a 15-acre police, fire and city parcel and a 600-student elementary school. On the most recent preliminary tax roll roughly 1,500 homes were standing and assessed, so it is somewhere under half built.
Why are so many of the homes age restricted?
Because that is the mechanism that made the density legal, and almost nobody explains it. The city's comprehensive plan does not cap this property at a number of homes. It caps it at the traffic equivalent of 3,000 single-family units plus 250 multi-family units. The adopting ordinance in 2016 read as 3,250 units, which is the figure still circulating. Then in December 2016 the city approved a master plan conversion and an increase in the number of residential units administratively, without a council ordinance, arriving at the current 2,690 single family, 960 age restricted and 250 multi family. The extra 650 homes exist because age-restricted homes generate fewer peak-hour trips and therefore fit inside the same traffic envelope. So roughly one in four homes here is legally required to be age restricted. That is not a marketing segment, it is a condition of the approval, and it tells you something real about who your neighbours will be and how the community will age.
What does the community district cost, and what is that clubhouse assessment?
One district covers about 2,428 acres of the community across three assessment phases, and the total lands on your November tax bill as a non-ad-valorem line rather than as association dues. For the current year every unit pays about $1,423 in operations. Earlier phases also pay about $1,431 in clubhouse operations plus $742 of clubhouse debt. On top of that sits a debt line that varies by neighbourhood, and the all-in totals run from roughly $3,311 a year on the smaller homesites to roughly $9,334 on the largest at Panther National. Two things to watch. The operations figure has moved a great deal: about $844, then $1,085, then $1,468, now $1,423, so up about 74 per cent over three years before a small dip. And the clubhouse assessment is not levied on everyone. The district's own budget footnote states that one parcel, the economic development parcel, the town centre and all of the third phase, which includes Panther National, are not assessed for the clubhouse because they receive no special benefit.
Can my assessment go up after I buy?
The debt portion is fixed per bond series and does not escalate, which sounds reassuring and is only half the story. What actually happens here is that new bond series get layered on top of neighbourhoods that already carry one. One parcel picked up a new series debt line of about $2,107 on top of its existing $3,522, taking that neighbourhood from roughly $4,313 to roughly $7,052 in a single year, an increase of about 63 per cent. And the cost of that debt has changed: series issued in 2021 priced between about 2.25 and 3.4 per cent, while series issued in 2025 and 2026 priced between 7 and 9 per cent. Later neighbourhoods therefore carry materially more expensive debt per home than earlier ones. Ask for the assessment schedule for your exact parcel, ask whether any further bond issuance is contemplated for your phase, and do not price off a neighbour's bill.
Who runs the district, and should that worry me?
The district's own audited financial statements answer this and we would rather quote them than characterise them. As of the most recent fiscal year end, all of the board members are associated with the landowner and developer. The same audit records that the developer has agreed to fund the general operations of the district, that its contributions to the general fund were about $10.5 million with about $3.0 million recorded as a receivable, that the district reimbursed the developer approximately $7.3 million for construction management and infrastructure acquisition and reimbursed a homebuilder about $309,000, and that the district's activity is dependent upon the continued involvement of the developers, the loss of which could have a material adverse effect. None of that is improper and all of it is normal for a district at this stage. The auditor did not report any going-concern doubt. It is simply worth knowing that the body setting your assessment and awarding its contracts is, for now, developer-controlled.
How many homeowner associations are there?
Fewer than you would expect, and this is a genuine simplification worth knowing. There is no Avenir master association. No such entity holds title to any parcel and the district's own offering document describes none. What exists is the district at the top, which owns both clubhouses and more than a hundred common parcels and funds the master landscaping, lakes, street lighting, midge control and street sweeping, and then a separate association for each neighbourhood beneath it. So if a sales office quotes you master association dues, that is the district assessment wearing a different hat, and it arrives as a tax-bill lien rather than an invoice. We could not obtain any recorded declaration because the county clerk's records portal returned server errors on every search we attempted, so we are not going to tell you what your specific neighbourhood's documents require. Ask for them and read them.
Before you walk into a sales office
Get your inside track on Avenir
We will connect you with a real estate professional licensed in Florida who represents you rather than the seller, who can register you before your first visit, and who will get you the answers this page could not: the full assessment schedule for your exact parcel, whether your neighbourhood pays the clubhouse charge, your association's recorded documents and dues, what any club obligation actually requires, and which of the several builders here is currently giving the most away.
It costs nothing, creates no brokerage relationship by itself, and does not obligate you to anything.