Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Plaza brings good news to a sad corner in Midtown

Shops at 22nd Avenue S and 34th Street are seen as the next best thing since Sweetbay.

By JON WILSON
Published January 25, 2006

ST. PETERSBURG - A Midtown shopping center expected to offer 18 stores and be second in size only to the Sweetbay development will rise at one of the city's busiest intersections.

Twin Brooks Commons Plaza, a $5-million, 26,400-square-foot project at 2100 34th St. S, is scheduled to be finished in June, officials say.

Developers and city leaders broke ceremonial ground Tuesday as traffic whizzed by on 34th Street, which is also U.S. 19. The development will stretch almost two blocks to 22nd Avenue S.

Mayor Rick Baker, touting the project as another step in Midtown's economic revival, said that not long ago the property consisted of a vacant grocery store, an adult store and billboards advertising bail services.

A Quiznos sub shop, Cingular Wireless and Advance America, a cash advance service, already are signed as tenants in the new plaza. An anchor tenant such as an office supply store is being sought, said William Kanatas, one of the developers.

Baker said he would like to see an additional restaurant in the plaza. He cited an Outback or a Carrabbas, saying that such a restaurant would fit well somewhere else along 34th Street S, if not in the new development.

Otherwise, the mayor said he hopes developers will talk to neighbors.

"I'd like them to do their surveys and do what the community wants," Baker said.

Sevell Brown, president of the adjacent 31st Street S Neighborhood Association, said residents welcome the plaza.

"The neighborhood association has been waiting for someone to claim this corner," Brown said. "We've been wanting something that would serve as a magnet."

Goliath Davis, deputy mayor for Midtown, said Twin Brooks Commons, named for a neighborhood a few blocks east, is the largest Midtown development since the Sweetbay Supermarket complex that opened last fall at 22nd Street S and 18th Avenue.

"The project's moving forward, there's money in the bank and there's no doubt it's going to happen," Davis said.

Twin Brooks Commons LLC and B&P Development Group are the companies behind the project. Management principals include Robert Parsons of Belleair Shores and Kanatas and Thomas Matthews of Chicago.

Heavy-equipment artist Ron Knous stole the groundbreaking's preliminary show. His job was to use a Caterpillar excavator to soften dirt for the ceremonial shovelers.

Knous spun the huge machine into position, shot the bucket forward and mussed the earth 2 feet from the speakers' podium so precisely that a decorative batch of flowers never jiggled.

"You put a penny on the ground and I'll hand it back to you," said Knous, who has operated heavy machinery for 40 years.

[Last modified January 25, 2006, 00:55:16]