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Whether it's a renovated warehouse or an apartment built to resemble one, loft living is in demand, and in the Tampa Bay area it's a rare commodity.
By JUDY STARK
© St. Petersburg Times, published August 11, 2001
New York City has been doing it for decades. Other major cities jumped on the bandwagon a few years ago. Now the Tampa Bay area is getting excited about it: loft living.
Onetime industrial or commercial spaces, or new construction -- call it "loft lite" -- that mimics the original, with soaring ceilings, exposed ductwork and steel framing, floor-to-ceiling windows with views out over the city, big open spaces and nearby neighborhoods full of interesting places to eat, shop and stroll: That's the promise of this style of urban living.
"The high ceilings and the natural light" are the strongest appeals for John Ramseur, 25, a medical office developer who lives in a 1,250-square-foot loft in Tampa's Channel district, near the port and the Ice Palace.
His loft, one of four rental units recently created out of the former Warehouse Theater, has 20-foot ceilings, two bedrooms and 11/2 baths and is outfitted with the sleek high-tech touches of black-painted exposed girders and metalwork, concrete or hardwood floors and cable stair rails leading to a sleeping loft and bathroom.
"For me, it's a simpler lifestyle," said Kim Markham, who with her physician husband and 15-year-old daughter now lives in the second residential loft (and third building) they've remodeled in the Channelside area, a onetime truck repair garage. "Everything is larger. You have more space. You have room to do what you want to do: a painting project or any kind of art project -- you have room to do it."
Who lives in lofts? Some are urban professionals, young people just starting out or empty-nesters ready to move out of a single-family home who want a different kind of living space. For them, an urban location near restaurants, shopping and entertainment is important.
Others are classic loft dwellers: graphic or performing artists who want big square footage where they can work and live. Cheap space may be more important than a location that's trendy or on the way to being so.
Chris Plimmer, an agent with Arvida Realty Services in South Tampa, has been marketing the SoHo Lofts, eight units of new construction at 2501 W Azeele St. in the popular SoHo -- "South of Howard" -- neighborhood of Tampa. "My buyer profile is Gen X," he said. "They're under 40: the youngest is 24, 25; the oldest are in the mid-30s. They are not Tampa natives. They're from other cities; they've experienced loft living before. They want to live in the middle of the city. They want what their parents didn't want," he said: multipurpose, open, low-maintenance, informal spaces.
"There's no denying, there's a resurgence in the popularity of urban living," said St. Petersburg architect-developer Tim Clemmons, who plans to build 16 loft-style condominiums, a project known as Fifth Avenue Lofts, at Fifth Avenue NE and First Street, three blocks north of the new BayWalk shopping-dining-entertainment venue in St. Petersburg.
"The idea of "cool' is an established American phenomenon now, and it's a powerful marketing force," Clemmons said. "The loft appeals to that kind of person."
Tampa's port area is dotted with warehouses that might lend themselves to conversion to living or live-work space. St. Petersburg has fewer such potential conversion candidates, because the city "never had an industrial economy. We don't have the classic warehouse buildings for conversion," Clemmons explained.
Residents of Tampa's Channel district point to the nearby Ice Palace, Aquarium and shopping-restaurant-movie theater complex as draws that will bring life and activity into the area and attract more potential residents.
"In the next several years this whole area is going to expand here. It will be a sidebar to downtown," said Ramseur, whose loft apartment is just down the street from the Tampa Port Authority.
"A lot of people are trying to cash in on the appreciation over here," agreed Cyndie Nickerson, a member of the development group that transformed the Warehouse Theater, once a 1930s cigar or cigar-box factory, into the apartments Mansour and three other tenants rent. "Channelside cinemas, the Port Authority, the trolley system coming in and all that." There is talk of upscale apartments coming to the area and a luxury 30-unit condo project called Washington Street Crossing on Channelside Drive where prices will range from $489,000 to $699,000. "We anticipate we'll have a true urban living mishmash of businesses, restaurants, retail and residential apartments."
That may help to turn around one of the difficulties of being among the early residents of a longtime industrial area. The city services taken for granted in residential neighborhoods may be hard to come by. "The stormwater sewers are horrible. We have a miniretention pond on our street," Nickerson said. "We personally have had problems with our street and the city said they're not going to fix it. We have some struggles getting the attention."
Now the city plans to run a trolley from Ybor City to downtown to the Ice Palace. "They're going to have to make that trolley system work," Nickerson said, "and to do that they're going to have to upgrade the surrounding areas as far as the eye can see and make people feel a little more comfortable riding the trolley."
Dominique Martinez lives in a 6,500-square-foot Channel district warehouse where stage sets and backdrops once were manufactured. "Once you walk into a warehouse, your mind fully expands," he said. "There are no barriers, no walls. You can really envision what can be done with empty space. And you can have some very large parties." He creates metal sculptures and large mirrors, and he plans to remodel part of his property into an art studio, home theater and archery range.
"Who knows what the future holds?" speculated Clemmons. "Are you the only residential building left standing because of the port expansion, the Ice Palace, the Aquarium, Channelside? Everyone envisions, "Oh, we'll be the pioneers, this will become SoHo,' " the onetime industrial district in New York City (South of Houston Street) that is now a trendy shopping, dining, gallery and residential quarter. "But how many buildings are serious candidates" for loft conversion? "For the artists and metalworkers, what if it does become SoHo? You get pushed out; artists get priced out; people complain about noise and smells, and you find people are saying you're not a good neighbor."
In other cities where loft living has come of age -- Chicago, Atlanta, New Orleans, Denver, Salt Lake City -- the old warehouses have already been converted, the sleekly finished models are open, and would-be loft dwellers can tour prospective homes. The Tampa Bay area isn't there yet.
"People call all the time trying to find lofts in the Channel District," Kim Markham said. "Although there are many wonderful lofts here, none -- nada -- zip -- are currently for sale or rent" in move-in, finished condition, a picture out of a Pottery Barn catalog.
She reported that it cost $600,000 to buy the warehouse she and her family have renovated into their loft home. It has 3,800 square feet of air-conditioned living space and a 7,000-square-foot workshop.
"We've had a lot of interest in the lofts down there," said JoAnn Ferlita of Property Pro, who is currently listing three warehouse properties that "all require some sort of renovation" on N and S 12th Street. They range in price from $430,000 to $650,000 and in size from 3,753 square feet to 7,300 square feet.
Those who want the ready-to-go loft look in a more manageable space and neighborhood may turn to something like the SoHo Lofts, priced in excess of $200,000: two-bedroom, 21/2-bath units of about 1,360 square feet with exposed-block walls, industrial-style staircases and 12-foot ceilings on the first floor, 10 feet on the second.
"These are new construction as opposed to conversion, so they offer some unique challenges," said architect-developer Keith Stanton of Domain Development. In loft conversions it's always interesting "to see how somebody worked around a structural system or plumbing system that already existed," he said. In new construction, "We didn't have those constraints. But it's hard to look neat" -- hard to make those visible wires and pipes look presentable -- "with subcontractors that aren't familiar with it."
These will not be the last lofts, or loft-style units, in this area. "You can see there's a definite interest in infill development," Stanton said. "People are tired of sitting in their cars for 45 minutes or 90 minutes a day. They want to spend that time doing something else. Infill is going to continue. . . . The solution is to create different mixed-use developments so people can live next to where they work."