What Changed on Worth Avenue and Royal Poinciana Way While Palm Beach Was Away This Summer

If you spent the summer away and walk down Royal Poinciana Way this month, how much of what you read about in spring is actually open? Less than the announcements suggest. The departures from Palm Beach's two main shopping streets were finished by the end of May. Most of the arrivals are dated to November or later, still under construction, or still waiting for a Town hearing. The season opens before the new storefronts do.

The closings are complete, and none of the spaces has a named successor

Three long-running independents closed between April and May, and each one ended differently.

The Palm Beach Book Store at 215 Royal Poinciana Way closed after 37 years. Owner Candice Cohen marked everything down 50% starting April 24, ahead of a closing planned for the end of that month. Mariko Palm Beach, the family-run jeweler on Worth Avenue, closed May 31 after 40 years. Owner Peter Kiyokawa was retiring and had no successor for the business. On South County Road, Kofski Antiques at No. 315 was reported to be going out of business on April 27.

Kapsiki is the one closing that is meant to come back. Owner Marnie Adams closed the boutique at 235 B Worth Ave. on May 31 and said it would reopen somewhere else on the island in the fall. As of early October, Kapsiki's own website still promises a new Palm Beach location "for this coming season" without giving an address or a date.

The RealReal also left Worth Avenue, for a larger store at CityPlace in West Palm Beach, which soft-opened August 13.

Local coverage through early October reports no new tenant or reuse plan for either the Book Store space or the Mariko space. Those gaps on the street are real, and as of now nothing has been announced to fill them.

The Oct. 31 line sets the island's opening calendar

The departures were finished by early summer. The arrivals depend on a Town rule: Palm Beach typically pauses major commercial projects on Worth Avenue after Oct. 31, so that heavy construction is not running during the busiest months.

That cutoff explains why openings tend to bunch up in late October and the first days of November. Last fall followed the pattern. La Coqueta opened at The Current in The Royal Poinciana Plaza on Oct. 8, 2025. ScandyCandy opened there on Nov. 1, and Lilly Pulitzer reopened its Worth Avenue flagship on Nov. 5.

This year, the biggest Worth Avenue project needed an exception to the rule. The Town is letting interior work on the new Van Cleef & Arpels store at 235 Worth Ave. continue into November, past the usual deadline. When a flagship jeweler is still building on the season's opening weekend, the Worth Avenue that returning residents see will look unfinished.

Where every announced storefront stands in early October

Of the nine, only three are open now. Two more are set for November, and the other four have no opening date at all.

November will look different from October

The arrivals that do have a date fall within a few weeks of each other. Vineyard Vines is returning to 330 Worth Ave. and was under construction in mid-September, aiming for the first week of November. Mira Mikati is opening its first U.S. boutique at 340 Royal Poinciana Way. As of Oct. 2, it had announced no opening day but was planning a November celebration.

Cavalier Galleries has already made its move. It shifted to 313½ Worth Avenue at Via Bice, shared the new space with C+C Photography Gallery over the summer, and planned to take it over alone in September, with an opening celebration in the fall. Off Worth Avenue, Michael Kors Collection opened a 700-square-foot boutique inside The Colony at 155 Hammon Ave. Dr. Barbara Sturm has been open at The Royal Poinciana Plaza since July 22.

Royal Poinciana Way has the clearest open question. Élephante, a planned restaurant described as Mediterranean upscale, is taking the former Almond space at 207 Royal Poinciana Way. The space had been empty for about two years when the Palm Beach Daily News reported in April that "all systems are now go," with plans for valet service and live music. The restaurant's website says it comes from Wish You Were Here Group. We could find no opening date through early October. The same block also lost the Book Store at No. 215, so this stretch of Royal Poinciana Way is waiting on two storefronts at once.

The Esplanade has the longest timeline

The biggest proposal on the island is also the furthest from opening. Reuben Brothers and Crown Onyx Investments bought The Esplanade at 150 Worth Ave. for $200 million earlier this year. They filed plans on Aug. 13 to turn it into Burlington Arcade at Palm Beach, named after the London arcade Reuben Brothers owns, which opened in 1819. The proposal includes:

• A Palm Beach location of Casa Tua, with a 270-seat restaurant and private club
• A second private club led by London businessman Robin Birley
• A Birley Bakery, plus a luxury retail store, spa and boutique
• New storefronts, facades, awnings, walkways and terraces, with parts of the existing architecture preserved

Reuben Brothers already has a growing presence on the island, including The Vineta Hotel and the ground floor of the Tiffany & Co. building on Worth Avenue.

The plans still need review by the Architectural Commission and the Town Council. Town records indicated those reviews could start as early as October. The project was not on the Sept. 23 ARCOM agenda. At the Sept. 9 Town Council development review meeting, the only 150 Worth item was a Starbucks annual-reporting matter. The agenda posted for the Oct. 14 meeting does not list the proposal either. The next ARCOM meeting is Oct. 28.

That puts every Burlington Arcade restaurant and club in the proposal stage for this season. The first Town hearing has not happened yet, and the Oct. 31 construction pause comes three days after the October ARCOM meeting. Agendas are posted on the Town's public meeting portal ahead of each session, so you can see when 150 Worth comes up for review.

The open questions heading into November

Several things remain unsettled as the season starts:

1. Kapsiki's new address. It still says it is reopening on the island this season, with no location named.
2. The 215 Royal Poinciana Way and 329 Worth Avenue spaces. No new tenants have been reported for either the Book Store space or the Mariko space.
3. Élephante's opening date. The Palm Beach Daily News reported in April that the project was cleared to go ahead, but no launch date has followed.
4. Bulgari's opening. The storefront design won conditional approval on April 6, which allowed the project to seek construction permits. No opening has been reported since.
5. Burlington Arcade's first hearing. It is not on the October Town Council agenda, and no ARCOM date has been confirmed.

Kapsiki is the one most likely to change in the next few weeks, since it has said publicly that it is reopening this season.

The storefronts changing hands on Worth Avenue and Royal Poinciana Way are part of the local picture a careful valuation takes into account. If you own a home or condo in Palm Beach and want to know how this season's changes affect your property, The JM Phillips Group can give you a valuation built on island-level detail. Get Your Instant Home Valuation and see where your property stands as the season begins.