The local leader isn’t just following his passion for the links. He’s developing a more luxurious golf experience, where players can take a break in an air-conditioned building with snacks and drinks in the middle of the course.

At a time when most South Florida developers view golf courses as redevelopment opportunities, Ari Pearl, founder and CEO of Hallandale Beach-based PPG Development, has three golf course renovation projects located within five miles of each other in Broward County, and a fourth in West Palm Beach.

Pearl isn’t just following his passion for the links. He’s developing a more luxurious golf experience, where players can take a break in an air-conditioned building with snacks and drinks in the middle of the course.

That’s one of the features in the new Shell Bay Club in Hallandale Beach. It’s part of the most expensive country club in the U.S, with a $1.35 million buy-in, Pearl said.

The club has just 200 members and is meant to be very exclusive, he added. Pearl built Shell Bay with Steve Witkoff, who was a member of many exclusive golf courses and helped him incorporate the best features of those clubs – and add some extras.

“Before Covid, golf courses were disappearing at alarming rates,” Pearl said. “Covid turned golf into the hottest sport again …. Steve’s vision was to do a club at the highest level imaginable, and to a level that doesn’t exist in the U.S.”

Before he started developing, Pearl owned a flooring business in his native New York. Growing up in Queens, he started working in flooring at 19 and had his own company by 24. He sold to many builders, but he wasn’t a developer.

In 2000, he sold his flooring company. He was on vacation in Florida when a broker pitched him on a development site in North Miami Beach. It was slated for 60 townhouses.

“I was intrigued by development, being that I supplied developers for a long time,” Pearl said. “At that point, I met architect Kobi Karp. Kobi convinced me that I needed to go bigger. He found more land for me to buy on that block, and we ended up building 100 townhouses.”

Pearl moved to South Florida in 2003 and committed to development full time. He did condo conversions and ground-up development, including residential and the Tides Hotel in Miami Beach.

“He is a visionary in the sense that he looks for areas that previously people have not dealt with in great depth,” Karp said of Pearl, whom he has four current projects with. “When you look historically, golf is inherent in our community. He says: ‘Let me bring the residential lifestyle within the golf course and create a vehicle for a better-designed lifestyle within a green environment.’”

Shell Bay has the Slate apartments, but the main residential and hospitality component will be the Residences at Shell Bay, with 108 condo-hotel units and the 60-room Auberge resort hotel. The big selling point is being on the expertly manicured golf course and all of the club amenities, including a technologically advanced center for driving and putting where custom golf clubs can be assembled, tennis courts of all Grand Slam surfaces, padel courts, pickleball, basketball, batting cages, a spa, a marina and more.

Pearl said the condos are 50% presold. They start at $2 million.

Not far away in Hollywood, Pearl is working with Mickey Taillard plus Nicklaus Design, led by legendary golfer Jack Nicklaus, to redesign the golf course at Emerald Hills. He would also build 288 condo units, 40 villas and 30 townhouses on part of the site. Pearl said it would be a private club, and homeowners in Emerald Hills would have a special membership plan available. He hopes to launch sales in 12 months.

Also in Hollywood, Pearl and Chip Abele won the city’s bidding process to renovate the Orangebrook Golf & Country Club in 2023. Rees Jones would renovate 27 holes of golf, and the developers would build a new clubhouse, 750 apartments and 200 hotel rooms.

“It would be a public golf course, but at a very high level,” Pearl said. “Rees Jones has designed more golf courses that hosted majors than any other designer. He will design this to host a major.”

In West Palm Beach, Pearl partnered with Witkoff to purchase the former Banyan Cay Resort & Club golf course and hotel project out of bankruptcy in January. They renamed it Dutchman’s Pipe Golf Club, started renovating the course and are working to finish the 150-room hotel this year.

“It’s the closest golf course to the island of Palm Beach that is not on the island,” Pearl said. “The layout, as a Nicklaus signature course, is spectacular. We were able to just improve on it.”

Golf isn’t necessarily a prerequisite for Pearl to take on a project. He’s planning 720 apartments on the former Nova Southeastern University campus in North Miami Beach; 486 apartments on Stirling Road in west Hollywood; a 250,000-square-foot office tower on Hallandale Beach Boulevard; and the 44 Bay Harbor Towers condominium, which should break ground this fall. He also owns the kosher Altair Bay Harbor Hotel, where he sold out most of the condos.

“Our projects change neighborhoods,” Pearl said. “Shell Bay and Slate changed Hallandale. Dutchman’s Pipe is changing the area. I believe the Club at Emerald Hills will upgrade that entire neighborhood.”

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