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© St. Petersburg Times, published January 29, 2003
ST. PETERSBURG -- Aveda is moving into downtown St. Petersburg, bringing not only a retail store with all-natural cosmetic, skin and hair products but a cosmetology institute and an academy for advanced training.
Aveda is moving into a building at 235 Third St. S. Tom Petrillo owns the property and is the exclusive distributor for Aveda products in Florida, he said.
The retail store will have a soft opening on Feb. 6 and its grand opening Feb. 14.
Aveda Academy will open March 26 and offer weekend classes for those already working in cosmetology who want to increase their skills.
No date has been set for the opening of the Aveda Institute because the company still is getting its license for that part of the business. Petrillo said that when the institute is up to full speed, it will graduate 100 students per year.
Aveda, which considers itself an environmentally sensitive company, makes its cosmetics and hair and skin care items from pure plant and flower essences, Petrillo said.
"There is no synthetic product or byproduct," he said. His brother Jim Petrillo is owner of the Aveda Institute.
Tom Petrillo is from South Florida. He said that when he returned to the state to be the exclusive distributor for Aveda, he picked St. Petersburg for the store and academy because of its central location and the renaissance of downtown.
ST. PETERSBURG -- The building vacated by Waccamaw's HomePlace at Gateway Market Center on Dr. M.L. King (Ninth) Street N is getting a Petsmart.
Petsmart, which bills itself as the nation's leading supplier of pet needs, will be taking more than half the space at 7777 M.L. King N. Renovation already is under way.
No tenant is signed yet for the remaining space, said Cathy Hawkins, property manager at Inland Southeast Management. Inland Retail Real Estate Investment Trust, headquartered in Oak Brook, Ill., owns Gateway.
Hawkins did not know when the pet market will open.
Waccamaw's HomePlace at Gateway closed in 2001 when the entire chain went out of business. In late 2001 and early 2002, the Book Market used the space.
ST. PETERSBURG -- Seahock Flooring Center opened Monday at its new address in the Tyrone area after 48 years at 5801 Central Ave.
It left Central to make way for a CVS pharmacy.
General manager Wayne Seahock said the new store at 3831 Tyrone Blvd. N has double the showroom space and will allow Seahock to expand its product line and extend its hours. The site is near a Wal-Mart and on a heavily traveled road.
The CVS to be built in Seahock's space on Central will be next door to a new medical building nearing completion. It will house HealthSouth Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation Center as well as doctors' offices.