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YMCA condos resume in March

Vector Properties has a new design and now plans 17 units at the Seville downtown.

By SHARON L. BOND
Published January 4, 2006

ST. PETERSBURG - Work will begin again in March on converting the historic YMCA downtown to the Seville, a building of residential condominiums.

"We had to go through a number of redesigns," said Corey Carver of Vector Properties, which bought the Y in 2004.

The Mediterranean building is at 116 Fifth St. S. It opened in 1927 and stayed in use until several years ago, when the YMCA moved to the Central Plaza area.

Then the downtown building went through several owners who planned to convert it to private residences. Improvements were made along the way, but none of the plans to convert was completed.

Carver said there is so much construction work going on in the area that subcontractors were choosing not to work on old buildings that were not completely cleaned out.

Vector completed the interior demolition. Parts of the interior were torn down by previous owners.

"Now it is similar to new construction for subcontractors," Carver said.

Some redesign had to be done to get prices down even more.

Original plans called for the ground floor to have six condos, two of which were quite large. Those two have been divided into two units each for a total of 17 condos.

Space in the enormous basement will be turned into a commercial condominium, which will bring in more revenue.

A change also has been made on the four townhomes on the first floor. Originally their entrances would have been inside the building. Now entrances to those four units will be from Second Avenue S.

Carver said two of the seven people who signed on to buy condos pulled out after the latest design.

"The whole second floor is sold out and part of the third floor," Carver said.

The second floor will have four units, the third, three and the top floor, two. The top floor units will be the largest and most expensive. One has 2,516 square feet and is priced at $944,000.

The other is 2,938 square feet with a price tag of nearly $1.2-million. The least expensive unit is on the second floor. It measures 1,135 square feet and is $377,000.

[Last modified January 4, 2006, 01:07:18]