Land locked

Prime building sites in downtown St. Petersburg are disappearing fast. A few are left but they will take luck and foresight.

By SHARON L. BOND, Neighborhood Times Business Editor
© St. Petersburg Times
published March 16, 2003

ST. PETERSBURG -- BayWalk, Midcore Garage, Hampton Inn & Suites, the Cloisters, the Florencia, Vinoy Place, Madison apartments and Opus.

These developments have swallowed so many blocks of developable downtown land in the past few years, you have to wonder, what's left?

Quite a bit, according to Kevin Dunn. As managing director of development for the city of St. Petersburg, Dunn often is the one developers approach about available land. He rolls out a desk-size aerial photograph of downtown. It's not just vacant land that may be the home of new office buildings or towers or condominium buildings in the next 10 to 15 years.

"What today may not look like a favorable project site because of the cost of assembling it, five years from now may be a great deal," Dunn said. Here is his view of where the developable land is. For this story, downtown is from Fifth Avenue N to Fifth Avenue S and from the bay to Fifth Street N.

TROPICANA BLOCK, bounded by First and Second streets and Central and First avenues N. This probably is the hottest piece of property left to be developed, according to Dunn. It has one building on it. Most of the property is used for parking.

"From a location standpoint, it is ground zero in the retail core," said Dunn. The city would like to see a dense, mixed-use project with residential, commercial, office, hotel and retail, he said.

The property is owned by Miami developer Tibor Hollo and local developer Jimmy Aviram.

"We're still working on a tenant," said Aviram, who also is involved in the development of the two Opus condominium projects planned for Beach Drive. He said he is looking for an office tenant and that tenant will dictate what else the building will have.

TOURTELOT SITE, southwest corner of Fourth Street and Fourth Avenue N. Nearly two years ago, plans for two 2-story office buildings were announced for this corner property. Construction plans still are in the works, but there will be only one new building. Part of the land on Fourth Street N has been sold, according to William C. Tourtelot, president of Tourtelot Brothers Inc.

His company has a one-story building on the site, which faces Fourth Avenue. It will be remodeled to go with the two-story structure that will be built for use by Tourtelot and a title company that he declined to identify because the deal is not set.

Construction will begin soon, Tourtelot said, adding he was not able to give an exact date.

Tourtelot said that when brokers approach him about developable land, he has these words for them: good luck.

CHARLESTON PLACE SITE, 235 Third Ave. N. This was to be the site of 16 luxury townhomes. The project was announced two years ago, but developer Robert McGrath decided against going ahead with the purchase of the land and let his option lapse.

The land was sold in October to Bayway Lofts, according to Pinellas County property records. Bayway is an entity that has the same address as Grady Pridgen Inc. A spokeswoman for Pridgen said he may be acquiring property in that area but no grand project is envisioned at this time.

UNIVERSITY VILLAGE RESIDENTIAL, bounded by Second and Third streets S and Third and Fourth avenues. This was to be the residential portion of the new downtown project where a Publix grocery soon will be rising from the old Dew Cadillac site. Zom Development of Orlando had an option on the land for the residential half but let it lapse. It planned to build 250 luxury apartments there. Zom just finished 277 luxury apartments several blocks south.

Bankers Insurance Group owns the land.

"We are in negotiations and for that reason, I don't want to disclose who we are talking to," said Barbara Peat, vice president for corporate communications for Bankers. She said there has been a lot of interest in the parcel, which Bankers uses for parking.

BANK OF AMERICA BLOCK, bounded by Central and First avenues S and Second and Third streets. While this block may appear completely filled with the Bank of America tower and its ground shops and restaurants, it actually has room for another tower.

"The site was designed with another tower in mind," said Mark Stroud, vice president for commercial development at Echelon Development LLC. Echelon was Talquin Development, which was part of Florida Progress. Talquin built the tower, which opened in 1990.

The tower is owned by Jimmy Aviram and Dean E. Kucera of St. Petersburg and Ron Bailey of Tampa. Kucera said knowing the site could take another tower or building was a plus when he and his partners bought it last year.

"We certainly have discussed it but we have no plans to do anything," Kucera said.

UNITED BANK BLOCK, 333 Third Ave. N. Seen from an aerial photograph, United's parcel looks like a huge piece of developable land. The bank sits in a corner with enough room left for a parking garage next to it, Dunn said. Then the back half or north side of the property could be sold for development.

Bank president Neil Savage said he was approached seriously one time by a developer who wanted to build a motel there.

"They wanted the north end, and they would work with us on parking," Savage said. "We just don't want to sell it."

ST. PETERSBURG TIMES PARKING LOT, bounded by Second and Third avenues S and Fourth and Fifth streets. The newspaper's southern most parking lot covers the entire block.

"You could put 500 units on that without blinking," said Dunn, referring to apartments or condominiums. He said a parking garage could be built on the Times' parking lot to the north for employees.

Chairman and chief executive officer Andrew Barnes said the lot is practically an attractive nuisance as far as drawing in developers, though there haven't been attempts to develop it in the past couple of years.

"I'm sure at some time the lot will have a residential or commercial structure on it. At the moment, the economics of it don't work," Barnes said.

"From an economic standpoint, it's still substantially cheaper to own the lot and park on the surface than to put up a structure to park cars."

ALBEMARLE BLOCK, NORTH TRACT, 300 block of Beach Drive NE. Opus South Corp. is building a 30-story tower on the southern half of this block. What about the northern half? Four businesses on it face Beach Drive NE: Smith & Associates real estate, Moon Under Water restaurant, Grayl's Hotel and artist P. Buckley Moss's studio and shop.

Are they the highest and best use of the land?

Any developer trying to convert these properties to some sort of high rise would meet a roadblock with Dale Grayl and his hotel at 340 Beach Drive NE. He says he has no plans to leave. He and his wife Mary bought the hotel in 1994. It is their retirement.

"We've had offers," said Grayl, 53, who also owns a pool company. "If somebody came up with $5-million, it wouldn't faze us. We've worked too hard.

FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL MUSEUM, SOUTH PORTION, the old Maas Brothers site, between Second and Third streets N and First Avenue N and Sunshine Lane. The city owns this land, which the museum leases along with the old department store. St. Petersburg College wants part of the land on which to build a classroom building. A new site also would be built for the museum. Then the southern portion of the tract would be available for the city to sell to developers.

That proposal is still under consideration, according to Rick Mussett, the city's economic development director.

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