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Condo residents await retailers

Developers plan for lots of businesses to serve those living above, but they'll have to be patient.

By ALEXANDRA ZAYAS
Published April 21, 2006

DOWNTOWN - It's the dream of developers, city promoters and residents: a metropolitan wonderland where condominium residents can live, work and play without venturing far from home.

Condo developers have set aside thousands of square feet for first-floor grocery stores, coffee shops, restaurants and salons aimed at transforming downtown from ghost town into boomtown. But will retail take the chance?

Patrick Berman, a real estate agent with Cushman & Wakefield, says, yes, but in time.

"You can't build residential and automatically get retail, unless you have enough people in the area to support it," he said.

The magic number for retailers is 10,000 residents who can walk to a store or get there in a short drive, Berman said.

That 10,000 doesn't include workers who leave downtown at 5 p.m. Friday and don't return until Monday morning.

These days, about 600 people live downtown, including the Channel District, according to the Tampa Downtown Partnership.

"We're set up to be patient," said Ken Stoltenberg, a developer of the Grand Central on Kennedy. "We had always assumed that the retail would come last, because the retail needs people."

He's confident the 106,000 square feet of retail space under his 392 residential units will fill with a full-service supermarket, a bank, restaurant, salon and coffee shop. It will just take time, he said.

Parkside of One Bayshore at Bayshore Boulevard and Platt Street sold all its 104 condos last year, but none of its 11,500 square feet of retail space has been leased.

Likewise, SkyPoint condos on Zack Street and Ashley Drive, scheduled for completion in 2007, advertises more than 10,000 square feet of street level retail, but Novare Group developers have not released a list of tenants.

Jim Walters, the Smith & Associates Realtor handling the One Bayshore retail space, said an initial letter of intent for the space fell through. Developers are reviewing three new offers and were scheduled to choose one soon, he said.

Offices will likely take over the space within the next six months, followed by all retail in the next two or three years, after people move into C, the development's 28-story, 134-unit sister tower.

Until then, One Bayshore resident Maryanne Piplica wishes the empty space on the first floor could be filled with something. Anything.

"Everybody would like to see the space utilized, there's no doubt about it," Piplica said. "To have a little gourmet shop would add to the building itself and, of course, be convenient to the people. It's just been so long that it's been vacant."

But Piplica, like other residents, is content to see the downtown lights from her condo and walk to the Publix supermarket across the street.

Nearby on Harbour Island, the 21-story Plaza project under construction plans to start small when it comes to retail by having services that will cater exclusively to its residents, such as a dry cleaner or a convenience store.

Star Cleaners, on the ground floor of the Post Harbour Island apartments, has done well in the location, said manager Daryl Pulido. He's the only dry cleaner on the island.

"You're going to pay more, but it's worth it," Pulido said.

Star has two other locations - one near Town 'N Country and in Clearwater. His next Star Cleaners could be in a new condominium development.

"It's the wave of the future, having retail and residential blend together," Pulido said.

Before signing a deal, however, he'd want to know he wouldn't be the lone business in a retail space. Then, he'd want to know other retailers would mesh well with his business.

And most importantly, there's one thing Pulido has to see: "Bodies. Bodies are going to support you."

Alexandra Zayas can be reached at 813 226-3354 or azayas@sptimes.com.

[Last modified April 20, 2006, 12:17:35]