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SHARON L. BONDProspective buyers are offered wine, hors d'oeuvres and penthouses costing as much as $3.5-million.
ST. PETERSBURG - The next condominium tower to be built downtown will have huge penthouses, marble foyers, private elevators and prices as high as $3.5-million.
Details of the $100-million Parkshore Plaza, which will go up on Beach Drive near two existing luxury condo towers, were unveiled Thursday evening to a gathering of prospective buyers.
The original plans were announced in January, but Thursday was the first time details such as price had been fleshed out.
Five of the 119 units will be penthouses in the 29-story tower planned for the 300 block of Beach Drive NE.
The top floor, on what will be one of the taller buildings downtown at just over 300 feet, will be a single unit, a penthouse of 7,000 square feet, one of the larger ones downtown. Already a buyer is interested.
The penthouses are priced at $2.25-million to $3.5-million. The other condominium units, some of which will be located in a "U" around the tower, range in price from $268,000 to $1.2-million.
Opus South Development LLC, a subsidiary of Opus South Corp., hosted the preview for 300 guests. They sipped wine and mixed drinks and ate hors d'oeuvres while they checked out floor plans or listened to live music in the tent behind the sales office Opus just opened on the corner of Beach Drive and Fourth Avenue NE.
The national developer, which has offices in Tampa, hopes to begin construction on Parkshore Plaza by the end of the year. The start depends on how much interest is generated.
"They will be sold out on this thing, I predict, before they get started," said David Ray of Cornerstone Bank. He said he was in Thursday's crowd as a businessman, not as a prospective buyer.
Carl Lindell lives on Culbreath Isles in a 10,000-square-foot house in Tampa and has homes in Colorado and North Carolina. He is seriously interested in the penthouse. He owns car dealerships, including Lindell Mazda on Tyrone Boulevard, and he has a housing development going in Pasco County. He would have to get used to a 30-minute commute to Tampa.
"It's the beauty and lifestyle of the whole thing. The marina, the airport, the parks, the museums," said Lindell, who knows the developers, which makes the project attractive to him.
Dr. Ian Phillips is vice president for research at the University of South Florida in Tampa. He has a laboratory at All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg. He is renting a townhouse in Tampa Palms but is interested in Parkshore Plaza.
"It's a dilemma for me to know exactly where to live," said Phillips, who said he loves both Tampa and St. Petersburg. He saw the sign outside the sales office, called and was invited to the preview.
Parkshore Plaza will be the third of four residential towers on Beach Drive. Built there in the past few years are the Cloisters and the Florencia. After Parkshore Plaza, Opus plans another condominium project in the 400 block of Beach Drive, which is largely vacant now.
Also in the wings is Grady Pridgen's $50-million project with a 42-story tower and 277 units. It would be a few blocks away, near BayWalk, and would be the city's tallest building. And Echelon Residential Development LLC is building five stories of lofts, 85 total, on top of its garage downtown at McNulty Station.
While Pridgen plans a restaurant for the roof of his tower, most of the condos reserve the top floor for pricy penthouses.
The Florencia has one that measures 7,652 square feet, while Vinoy Place has one that is 5,300. Some units in Bayfront Tower have been combined to produce homes of 3,200 square feet.
At Parkshore Plaza, tower homes will be built in 26 of the 29 floors, leaving the first three floors for a two-story lobby with concierge, fitness room and social areas such as a media room that leads out to the pool.
Each of the residential floors, except for the top three, will have four units ranging in size from 2,500 square feet to 3,100 square feet, said Jerry T. Shaw, senior vice president at Opus. He is based in Tampa.
Floors 27 and 28 will have only two condominiums each. Those units will be about 4,800 square feet in size.
"What we are offering is very good value," Shaw said. "We are very competitive in the marketplace."
The portion of the 300 block of Beach Drive where Parkshore Plaza will be built now is occupied by the an old-style motel, the Beach Park Motor Inn, and a parking lot. It is unclear how soon the Beach Park will be demolished.
The tower will sit in the center of the property. The U-shaped ring around it will include the least expensive of the units on the second and third floors above shops and cafes at the street level. Townhomes will face First Street N, and so-called city homes will face Third Avenue NE and Beach Drive.
Parking is separate from the tower, Shaw said. On the east side there will be two levels of parking topped by the pool deck. On the west side, there will be three levels of parking. Each unit will get two parking spaces. Parking for the retail will be separate from that of the residences.