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Channel District

Crews clear ground for huge condo complex

The project will include a 53-story observation tower and residences starting in the mid $300,000s.

By JANET ZINK
Published February 4, 2005

Construction crews have started clearing the site for Pinnacle Place, a 6-acre residential/retail complex that includes a 624-foot space needle.

Two 41-story condominium towers, dubbed 02, will be the first phase of the project.

A sales center for the 340 condos will open at Channelside Drive and Cumberland Avenue in the next two months, real estate agent Toni Everett said.

In the past three months, about 120 potential buyers have reserved units, Everett said. Prices on the one- to four-bedroom condos range from the mid $300,000s to $2.8-million.

Construction of the towers and the needle is expected to begin late this year and be done by late 2007, the developers say.

The condominium complex will include a swimming pool, fitness center, movie theater, game room and guest suites.

The observation tower, called the Pinnacle of Tampa Bay, will be the centerpiece of Pinnacle Place, a $500-million project. Standing about 53 stories tall, it will have a restaurant overlooking the city and rooms available for private parties.

"We're going to change the skyline forever," said Ken Morin of Morin Development Group, one of the developers behind the project. "It's the type of project that Tampa has never seen before."

Frank DeBose, president of Pinnacle Group Holdings and one of the project's developers, has been pushing plans for the needle for more than 10 years. The recent redevelopment of downtown Tampa, which includes thousands of residential units, made the timing right.

"All that you see happening in downtown is not happening by accident," he said. "All around the state of Florida, you have people moving back into downtowns."

Pinnacle Place also includes a hotel, parks, amphitheater and 100,000 square feet of retail space underneath residential lofts.

In July, Pinnacle Place Development Partners paid $14.5-million for the land. The partnership includes the development firm of Corvus International, which has offices in Michigan and Sarasota.

Corvus also is developing a 170-unit condominium project with boat slips in Palmetto and five buildings with 29 condos on the Gulf of Mexico in Longboat Key. Corvus builds about 1-million square feet of industrial, high-tech and office space a year in the Midwest, according to a press release.

Morin's projects include Walter's Crossing, a shopping center on the former Walter Industries site at Dale Mabry Highway and Interstate 275 anchored by Target, Linens 'n Things and Designer Shoe Warehouse.

Morin's Suncoast Crossings, a 689-acre master-planned community at the Suncoast Parkway and State Road 54, will have 1,300 single- and multifamily homes, 500,000 square feet of retail space and 1-million square feet of office space.

Janet Zink can be reached at 226-3401 or jzink@sptimes.com

[Last modified February 3, 2005, 10:01:08]