Tampabay: Beach Drive hotel in the works

JMC Communities, developer of the luxury Florencia condominium on Beach Drive, will build a four-story Hampton Inn & Suites next door, offering rooms in the $100-a-night range to attract vacationers and business travelers.

The company planned to build a three-story office building on the lot, which held its sales office during construction of the Florencia. It changed its plans when pre-leasing stalled on the office building after a bank tenant pulled out due to a merger.

"We just found a lot more need for guest rooms in the city and more moderately priced, but with a very high level of quality," said JMC chief executive J. Michael Cheezem.

The Florencia was the second of three luxury condominium complexes to be built in downtown St. Petersburg in the past four years. Its 50 units have been sold. They ranged in price from just over $400,000 to $2-million, raising the question of whether a moderately priced hotel is the appropriate neighbor for waterfront redevelopment.

JMC looked at downtown Hampton Inn & Suites in Savannah, Ga., and Charleston, S.C.

"They blend in beautifully," Cheezem said. "The one we will be doing will contain a lot of the same materials that the Florencia has: a tile roof, stone accents and pavers along the walkway.

"It is not at all the type you see along the interstate or a standard Hampton Inn," he said.

The $8-million downtown St. Petersburg Hampton Inn & Suites hotel will contain 92 rooms and 4,000 square feet of retail space that will blend with other street-level shops in the condominium buildings on Beach Drive. The space could accommodate one to three retailers, Cheezem said, but none of it is leased yet.

About 30 percent of the rooms will be in a suite configuration, Cheezem said. Hotel patrons will get a continental breakfast, but JMC hasn't decided whether the Hampton Inn will have its own restaurant. The hotel also will offer meeting rooms and have a swimming pool on the second floor with an open courtyard to the west.

Parking will be on the ground floor and in the nearby Mid Core Garage, where JMC has 60 spaces.

Construction is expected to start by the end of this year, and the opening is planned for November 2002, Cheezem said.

In announcing the new hotel, Mayor Rick Baker said it was the first new hotel development since the 360-room Renaissance Vinoy Resort re-opened in 1992 after standing vacant for 15 years and getting a multimillion-dollar renovation. The Heritage Holiday Inn with 72 rooms, and the Hilton St. Petersburg with 333 rooms are also downtown. The city also has a number of small hotels, many of which are being renovated, and bed-and-breakfast inns. Those plus the new one would bring the city's total number of rooms to 1,000, Baker said.

Another development group, Tropicana Partners LLC, is investigating whether there is there is a need for a convention hotel with some retail space in it.

Tibor Hollo, a Miami developer, and Jimmy Aviram, a marina owner who also owns downtown property, formed Tropicana Partners and paid $4-million for a downtown block bound by First and Second streets and Central and First Avenue N.

Hollo said Wednesday that another hotel would not make him reconsider St. Petersburg as a spot for a convention hotel if an ongoing study proves the city would support one.

"I wish there were five others," Hollo said. "The more good, new hotel rooms developed in St. Petersburg, the more visible the city is for conventions."

Hollo said a convention that would attract 2,000 is considered a small one. He also said meeting planners don't always want to book five-star space for their conventions or conferences. But they do like new hotels.

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