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© St. Petersburg Times, published February 19, 2003
ST. PETERSBURG -- Downtown is getting 85 more condominiums, lofts that will be built in more than five stories atop the McNulty garage on First Avenue S and Second Street and feature a more urban look and feel than other new downtown residences.
Features more in line with loft living include brick walls, exposed ductwork and sealed concrete floors. Some units will have cityscapes and some, bay views. It will be a pet-friendly living space: Big dogs are welcome.
After more than a year planning McNulty Lofts, Echelon on Tuesday announced the project, saying construction probably will not start until May.
On the same day Echelon made its announcement, plans were submitted to the city by Opus South to build a condominium tower in the 400 block of Beach Drive. Last month Opus filed to build a condo tower in the 300 block of Beach Drive. The numbers are not set but those two buildings probably will have 270 units total. Add McNulty to that and within a month, downtown has been targeted for about 350 residences.
The McNulty Lofts represent Echelon Development's first venture into for-sale units and come at a time when downtown St. Petersburg is steadily adding residences. Echelon is the developer of Carillon office park in north St. Petersburg and also is known for its luxury rental apartments. It was formed in late 1996 when Florida Progress Corp. decided to spin off its real estate holdings. Since then, Florida Progress was bought by Carolina Power & Light of Raleigh, N.C., and now is Progress Energy.
McNulty Lofts will be priced from $189,900 to the mid $500,000s. More than half will be less than $300,000, according to Mark Stroud, president of Echelon Real Estate Services LLC, a division of Echelon.
Echelon developed and owns the 714-space, seven-floor garage. The lofts will be built in 51/2 floors on top with 17 units per floor. The building can accommodate so many units in so few floors because of its large size.
Sizes of the condominiums will range from 1,000 square feet to 2,700 square feet. The top or penthouse floor will have 17 penthouses, 14 of which will have second-story lofts, thus the half-story.
Construction will not begin until Echelon presells 50 percent to 60 percent of the condominium project. Stroud said he hoped that would be done by May. McNulty Lofts will take 14 months to build. Echelon has not started its marketing campaign yet. However, two of the penthouses are spoken for.
Stroud said he believes the lofts will get buyers from a number of areas: first-time owners, single people who also might work downtown, empty nesters into urban living and ready to spend a half-million to do it and investors.