Northwood Village Spent the Construction Years Growing Toward 25th Street

"There's what, six buildings over here, another big huge building over here, and that's a change," Scott Mast told WPTV in July 2025. Mast owns Circa Who Furniture at 531 Northwood Road. He called the development pressing in on Northwood Village a "double-edged sword." It was a highly sought-after area, he said, but foot traffic had dropped because of the closures. He also expected the development to help local businesses in the long run, and he described the roadblocks as growing pains.

More than a year later, the big building still isn't finished. The village's newest dining didn't wait for it. In the same stretch when Broadway access was at its worst, two seafood kitchens opened in Northwood. Neither one is on the 400 or 500 block of Northwood Road. They're on the side streets, and those streets now hold much of what's new in the district this fall.

Two seafood kitchens opened during the closures

Palm Beach Lobsters & Seafood came first. It opened in September 2025 at 2501 N. Dixie Highway, run by local divers John Kyle Christoffers and his father, Scott Christoffers. The menu is built on what they catch: Florida lobster, stone crab claws, and local fish such as tripletail, hogfish and lionfish.

A few weeks later, The Catch Seafood & Sushi got ready to open at 529 25th St. Its owners are the husband-and-wife team Jorge Paz and Tara Barnes. They moved the restaurant from Northlake Boulevard in Lake Park after closing that location in June 2025. Stet News reported that the move came together fast. "This has been a very quick turn," Paz said at a staff menu tasting. "Just three months after we decided to stop the deal on Donald Ross." The old Lake Park location had a water view, and the new one doesn't. To make up for it, the 25th Street space has a thatch-covered deck in an outdoor dining area behind the main dining room. Stet reported a December 2025 opening. By June 2026, the City of West Palm Beach was listing The Catch's weekly food and drink specials and weekday happy hour in its Northwood Village promotions roundup.

Stet called The Catch the second new seafood restaurant in Northwood's commercial section within a few months. Both owners committed to the neighborhood while the streets were still blocked.

What 25th Street looks like on a map

Plot the addresses and the pattern is clear. Northwood Road is still the main street, but 25th Street has turned into its own short block of food and craft.

ArtWorks of Northwood describes itself as a family-owned framing and art business. One block south, Wendell Gallery at 411 24th St. was founded by Wendy Grimaldi and shows a roster of working artists. If you add Café Sweets, you can get dinner, dessert and gallery browsing within a couple of short blocks without stepping onto Northwood Road.

The main strip is still active too. The same City release in June listed summer offers at nearly every storefront along it. These included a dinner special at Café Centro, a storewide offer at Will Davis's Day By Day Shoppe at 513 Northwood Road, an upholstery promotion at The Painted Ox at 415, a first-purchase offer at Casa Cristalle at 508, and product and service deals at Belzeb Wellness at 519. Those summer deals have ended. What matters now is that the shops ran them, which shows they were open and trying to bring people in through the slow season. Café Centro's homepage read "WE ARE FULLY OPEN" when it was checked on September 30, 2026. The village directory lists it at 402 Northwood Road and also at 2409 N. Dixie Highway, so check the entrance before you go.

The District still hasn't named a restaurant

That leaves the project behind Mast's comment. The District at Northwood, at 2501 Pinewood Ave., is planned for 382 residences and about 64,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space. The City's redevelopment agency says the project includes extending Broadway from Northwood Road to 23rd Street and realigning Pinewood Avenue. Both changes will affect how people reach the village from the south.

In March 2026, Colliers announced the project's first retail lease. ELEV8TION Fitness, owned by Angel Bajana, signed for 7,617 square feet. Colliers projected completion for the fourth quarter of 2026 and said the planned streetscape would anchor the Northwood Village corridor. The Real Deal also described ELEV8TION as the first retail lease. We found no restaurant tenant named in any reporting from 2025 or 2026.

This matters for the 64,000 square feet, which will eventually hold several new dining rooms. For now, every new place to eat in Northwood since September 2025 was opened by an independent operator, and two of them put down roots while the construction fences were up. The fourth-quarter finish is a forecast Colliers made in March. The City's latest road bulletin still lists the project as active.

Getting there through November

The City's Road and Dock bulletin, published September 24, 2026, lists a full closure of 23rd Street between Pinewood Avenue and Broadway Avenue for The District. The closure runs until the end of November. On a regular weeknight, these approaches avoid it:

• To 25th Street and The Catch: Come in on 25th Street itself or via North Dixie Highway. Neither route uses the closed block of 23rd.
• To Palm Beach Lobsters & Seafood: It's right on North Dixie Highway at 2501, so the 23rd Street closure doesn't affect it.
• To the 400 and 500 blocks of Northwood Road: Northwood Road connects Broadway and North Dixie Highway. It stays open except on event nights.

On event nights, the closures grow. For the September 25 Nights in Northwood Village, the City closed Northwood Road from Broadway Avenue to North Dixie Highway and Spruce Avenue from 22nd to 24th Street, from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. The 25th Street restaurants were outside that zone, which makes them an easy stop before or after the street party.

The Broadway utility work WPTV described in 2025 was expected to wrap up by summer 2026. That date has passed. The City's current bulletin is the best guide to what's actually closed this week.

The Friday after Thanksgiving

Nights in Northwood Village is the one evening when the main strip and the side streets fill up together. The September 25 edition featured Latin Groove Project and percussionist Joe Collado, with more than 50 vendors. In June, ReaXtion Band played the event.

Next date: Friday, November 27, 2026, 6 to 9 p.m., on the 400 block of Northwood Road. Music by Jam-X The Band. Free.

That's the day after Thanksgiving, and it lands right as the 23rd Street closure is scheduled to end. It's also the first Nights in Northwood with a full year of the new neighbors living nearby. The Spruce, a 270-unit apartment complex on Spruce Avenue between 24th and 25th Streets, opened at the start of 2026. The City held its official grand opening on June 2. Its block is next to the 25th Street restaurants, so many of those residents can walk to dinner.

When The District's storefronts open, Northwood Road will have a new neighbor to the south. This fall, the newest tables in the village are on 25th Street and North Dixie Highway, and they belong to the Christoffers family and to Jorge Paz and Tara Barnes.

Northwood is changing block by block, and a neighborhood restaurant's address shows a home's surroundings in a way a listing photo can't. If you own in Old Northwood and want to know how the village's growth affects your home, Erica Wolfe and the team can walk you through it, starting with a valuation built on blocks like these. Get Your Home Valuation.