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Lealman has a new coffeehouse hangout

LEALMAN - Jitters Coffee Bar opened recently in Eagles Park Shopping Center, serving coffees by Italian roaster Segafredo.

The owners are sisters Chris and Kelley Anderson. The shop has tables in the front and a lounge in the back where a stage is being built, said Chris Anderson. Entertainment will be added when the stage is finished.

"We are a large coffee shop. We have 2,400 square feet," Anderson said. "We're in the middle of three retirement communities, and we are looking at night to be teen friendly. We want to be a bar without the alcohol and nastiness."

Students are using the back area for study groups, she said. Customers have ranged from age 16 to 98. Food includes fresh-baked bread, pastries, bagels and cold sandwiches.

Jitters, which gets its name from the obvious effect of too much espresso, has wireless Internet service.

ST. PETERSBURG - Repair work began last week on the Detroit Hotel condominiums, where some areas of the brick facade have to be replaced because mortar nearly has disintegrated.

Carter Karins of Karins Engineering said the repair work involves the east face of the fourth floor in the western wing, which is the area over the Garden Restaurant.

"The bricks were loose and in danger of falling. Most of the time, the bricks could be taken out by hand," Karins said. His company was hired by the board of the Detroit homeowners association.

The Detroit, at 215 Central Ave., was built in the late 1800s. Wings were added later. It closed in 1993. Conversion to 24 condominiums began in 2001.

Karins said Structural Preservation Systems, a national firm, has brick specialists from Chicago removing the bricks where the mortar is compromised. They will do the replacement also.

The process should take about three weeks.

ST. PETERSBURG - Owners of McNulty Lofts will begin closing on their units in December, with all of the 85 condominiums turned over by the end of February or early March.

"The very strong market makes McNulty look like a real bargain today," said Mark Stroud, chief operation officer for Osprey Management Co. LLC.

Stroud was with Echelon Development, which is building the lofts, when the project started. Although he changed companies, he kept a hand in the construction of the five floors of lofts on top of an existing seven-story garage downtown at 101 Second St. S.

Stroud was referring to the strong condominium market in downtown St. Petersburg, where nearly a dozen projects either have been built, are near completion or are in the planning stages.

Instead of price tags of hundreds of thousands of dollars like the lofts, many of the new condos have sales prices in the millions.