West Palm Beach’s first waterfront apartment complex to open in nearly 60 years is a double-tower luxury stunner courting an echelon of Wall Street South workers following their jobs and big bosses to Palm Beach County.

But the tale of the 24-story Icon Marina Village, which held its grand opening March 2, is more than oversized glass balconies and decor by Venus Williams and $10,000-a-month penthouse apartments. It’s a bust-to-boom redemption story as the Miami-based Related Group invests deeply in the city on the sandy western shore of the Lake Worth Lagoon.

“Over a 10-to-20-to-30-year period of time, I would pick South Florida as a place to invest,” said Related Group founder and CEO Jorge Perez. “The pandemic worried us a little, but long term, we don’t have any worry about South Florida.”

More than two decades ago, Related Group spurred a resurgence in downtown West Palm Beach with residential real estate projects such as The Slade, Villa Lofts, The Tower Condominiums at CityPlace, The Prado and The Courtyards in CityPlace.

It was in 2005 — the height of the housing frenzy — that Related bought most of the land for the Icon Marina Village on North Flagler Drive next to the Rybovich Marina. When that housing bubble was burst by bad loans and adjustable-rate mortgages, Related shelved its building plans but kept the property.

Related Group led by Perez is separate from Related Cos. of New York, which developed The Square mixed-use center and has several downtown office buildings currently under construction or in the planning stages.

In pre-pandemic 2019, Related Group began planning for the 399-unit Icon Marina Village. It broke ground in a still-uncertain April 2021 just after lender NewDay USA announced it was creating a headquarters in West Palm Beach, but a month before Goldman Sachs Group said it would lease space in the 360 Rosemary office tower downtown.