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Letter to the editor

Achievement befits towering passion

Move over, Trump. Creating - and talking - on a grandiose scale are all in a day's play for developer Joel Cantor.

By By JAMES THORNER, Times Staff Writer
Published September 2, 2007

Joel Cantor steps over construction debris and admires the massive columns that frame the four-story lobby of his Signature Place condominium tower in downtown St. Petersburg.

At $1.5-million apiece, the concrete monoliths create the grand entrance Cantor desires for what's going to be the tallest and most expensive residential tower in West Florida.

"Nothing's been built like this since the pyramids," Cantor says.

Plunging into the building site, Cantor, 43, points out a six-story artificial waterfall under construction.

"It's the biggest water feature south of Niagara Falls," he says.

With apologies to the Pharaoh Cheops and the National Park Service, Cantor's sincerely enthusiastic about his $165-million project.

Donald Trump has snared most of the headlines with a proposed luxury high-rise in downtown Tampa. But Cantor's quietly been making a bigger impact on the region's skyline.

A development whiz kid who made his first million at 28, Cantor hopes his gossamer sail-shaped tower becomes a landmark akin to the TransAmerica building in San Francisco and the Chrysler building in New York City.

The Florida condo market has tanked and lenders have scampered. But Cantor not only landed a financier in Fifth Third Bank, he's sold 80 percent of the 246 units despite charging one of the highest square-footage prices in this part of Florida.

"The most amazing thing is what he's accomplished at his age. It's like Tiger Woods trying to catch up with Jack Nicklaus," said Russ Callahan, a Tampa commercial mortgage broker who's handled most of Cantor's deals. "He's been that successful at a relatively young age."

Joel Alan Cantor has a long record of being a risk taker. After graduating from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst with a dual major of international business and Mandarin Chinese, the Boston native couldn't find a coveted job on Wall Street.

He resorted to hawking a pile of 10,000 resumes on the streets of Lower Manhattan. The tactic worked. A Chase Manhattan executive hired him. After a few years on Wall Street, during which he earned an MBA from the Wharton Business School, Cantor moved to Tampa in 1989 to work for developer Trammell Crow. He left within months to start his own real estate investment company, Gulf Atlantic.

Cantor's business philosophy was clear from the start: Buy cheap, wrangle good financing from the bank, never miss a monthly payment and market the hell out of a property.

He initially bought Westminster Chase, a new apartment building in South Tampa whose 224 units were 70 percent vacant. Cantor banged on doors at neighboring apartment buildings, offered two months' free rent and offered potential tenants the free services of a moving van.

"In three months I had every single one rented," Cantor says.

He acquired more apartments. As his millions piled up, Cantor looked for bigger challenges. In 1999, he bought the William C. Cramer Federal Building at 100 First Ave. Sin St. Petersburg. He ran it as an office building. After a couple of years he decided its near-waterfront proximity suited condos.

But what kind of condos? Cantor decided to go all in. He hired one of the nation's top architects in Chicago's Ralph Johnson. Wanting a unique and unboxy building, Cantor traveled the world and compiled a photo gallery of 3,200 skyscrapers.

Johnson and Cantor settled on a thin building shaped like a billowing sail, its lower end pointed like a ship's prow. The shape had two upsides aside from visual appeal: Every apartment would have a water view and its slim profile didn't obstruct the views from nearby St. Petersburg office buildings.

"Joel never tries to make a location, he tries to find a location," Tampa mortgage broker Callahan said. "In the end you'll have a $200-million building sitting on the site of an office building that was worth a tenth of that."

Cantor has finished about a third of the stories of the 35-story building, aiming for a completion date in early 2009.

His success has allowed him to indulge in a favorite pastime, traveling the world.

He's visited 90 countries. He traveled the length of the Amazon River on local ferries, hiked the Himalayas, trekked 5,000 miles through southern Africa in a Jeep, and fired torpedoes aboard a U.S. Navy submarine in the Atlantic Ocean.

He owns a yacht and retains a skipper to pilot it. A Rocky Mountain vacation home in Telluride, Colo., serves as a summer retreat for his family: wife Shannon and four boys ages 1 to 11.

"I liken him to a local Richard Branson," Cantor's longtime lawyer Jeff Aman says, comparing him to the globetrotting British billionaire. "He's very passionate about business, but he's also passionate about just living life."

Freshly returned in August from surfing in Hawaii and a sojourn in the Rockies, Cantor jumps aboard a construction elevator to check Signature Place's progress. He emerges in the 15th floor's open air. The building is several stories higher than when he left on vacation. Tampa Bay shimmers in the morning light.

"Killer views, huh?" Cantor says.

Then it's back to the sales center in the lobby of St. Petersburg's Bank of America tower. Slow market or not, he's confident he'll sell out condos that average $700,000. Buyers include a race car driver, best-selling novelist Michael Connelly, rock star David Bowie's manager and other, lesser luminaries.

"I'm known as the ultimate finisher," Cantor says as he looks over a table model of his 35-story baby into which he's sinking millions of his own money. "When I commit, I commit to the death."

James Thorner can be reached at thorner@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3313. Thorner's blog on housing, (Un)Real Estate, can be found at blogs.tampabay.com/realestate.

About Signature Place

Cost: $165-million

Location: 100 First Ave. S, St. Petersburg

Size: 366 feet high, 206 condominiums in 35 stories

Owner/Developer: Cantor Development LLC

Description: They call it the tallest and most expensive privately owned building in Pinellas County history. Signature won't have the gold-plated cachet of Trump Tower, but it's got one big advantage over its Tampa doppelganger: Vertical construction has actually commenced. Signature Place will span an entire city block near the waterfront on the former site of the William C. Cramer Federal Building. Office and retail on the lower floors will give Signature big-city accoutrements. Oncefinished, it will be taller than downtown's current highest building: the Bank of America tower. Look for completion inearly 2009.

[Last modified September 1, 2007, 21:18:35]