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Home and Garden

Investing in mom, with love

By ELIZABETH BETTENDORF
Published January 19, 2007

Alfredo Castro probably wouldn't fit the definition of a high-stakes Florida real-estate developer.

Neither would his sisters.

Castro, 40, who lives in Odessa with his wife and two sons, is an accountant by trade.

His sister, Susana Castro-Alcaraz, 39, is a pediatrician; and Maria Castro-Sansone, 35, is a speech therapist.

So why did the three siblings buy a dilapidated 1921 commercial building in downtown Tampa, best known for housing Ernest Maas' first women's apparel store?

Because of their mother's cooking, that's why.

Maria Castro, now 65, has served up her famous Spanish-style cuisine in downtown Tampa for more than two decades

"Mom's restaurant had been on Twigg Street for a long time, and we thought, 'Why don't we create a commercial space and an apartment for her upstairs?' " Castro recalls.

The project, a 10-year labor of love, resulted in the six-unit Spain Lofts and ground-floor Spain Restaurant and Toma Bar, where, by day, their mother doles out her famous ropa vieja, paella, boliche, and chicken and rice. By night, it's traditional family tapa recipes from the northwest region of Spain, known as Galicia.

The highly contemporary rental lofts - with views that take in a cityscape that includes Tampa Theatre and the University of Tampa - were designed by local architectural firm Able-Garcia. So was the restaurant: a crisp, romantically modern and hip space that's white on white with candlelight, flamenco guitarists and Spanish dancers on weekend nights.

The building, at 509-513 N. Tampa St., was built in 1921 as the Tampa Merchants Association Building. Over the years it housed two furniture stores, but is best remembered as Ernest Maas' first ladies' apparel store.

When the Castro siblings pooled their money a decade ago to buy the structure, "it was a mess," Alfredo Castro remembers.

The first floor housed Rockefeller's Bar, which "basically hadn't been functioning for more than a decade," Castro says. "And upstairs windows were broken, and pigeons were living inside."

Still, the threesome had a vision of an adaptable reuse of a historic downtown Tampa building, in an urban neighborhood that they felt would someday offer residential housing along with vibrant cultural offerings within walking distance.

He sees the trend beginning to take root but dreams of a day when downtown Tampa "is more like downtown St. Petersburg."

The finished one- and two-bedroom lofts rent for $2,200 for a two-bedroom, two-bath unit, and $1,500 for a one-bedroom, one bath. They feature clean, high-ceiling spaces with dramatic windows and interiors that show off the building's elegant urban bones. They also have hardwood floors, stainless steel appliances, and the two-bedroom models are generously sized at 1,500 square feet.

Residents tell him that they like not having to commute to jobs in downtown Tampa or to classes at UT.

Despite the fact that the three-story structure was in horrible shape, "we fell in love with it," explains Castro, who paid about $226,000 for the building 10 years ago.

What they didn't realize, he says, was the amount of rehabilitation it would take to make the building livable - and beautiful - again. The bureaucratic red tape was another nightmare, although he says, "certain individuals within city government have been very helpful navigating" through a system that's difficult for ordinary people trying to make a difference.

"It took a lot of love," he says of the $1.5-million restoration, which included replacing the steel infrastructure, and it "wasn't what we jumped into."

"We thought we would just gut it and redo it. To get it done we had to take out our own home-equity loans. Everybody pitched in."

Castro grew up in New York where his father owned a Spanish restaurant, El Faro The Lighthouse, on 72nd Street next to Central Park. In the 1980s, the family moved to Tampa where Alfredo Castro went to school, graduating from Tampa Catholic High School in 1984.

He's spent much of his adult life in New York, but returned to Tampa with his wife and family for good three years ago.

Between keeping up with his son's youth baseball league and traveling to New York for work, he still manages to be a bartender and maitre d' at the restaurant on weekend evenings.

The family keeps an apartment for their mother to relax in after a long day if she doesn't feel like making the drive to Town 'N Country. And after a busy night, the entire Castro clan sometimes sleeps over.

"We get up on Sunday morning and walk with the boys to church at Sacred Heart and then go to breakfast at First Watch."

Or, he says, they just go where they really feel at home: the Spain Restaurant.

"The restaurant isn't open on Sunday, and we all just sit around as a family and have Cuban toast and coffee."

Elizabeth Bettendorf can be reached at ebettendorf@hotmail.com.

Fast Facts:

To learn more

For more information on the Spain Lofts or restaurant, call (813) 223-2831.

[Last modified January 18, 2007, 08:12:01]