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County may buy former hotel to add office space
By DAVID K. ROGERS © St. Petersburg Times, published February 2, 1999 ST. PETERSBURG -- Pinellas County commissioners today will consider a plan to buy the former Suwannee Hotel for office space and possibly demolish the current County Building across the street from City Hall. The commission is scheduled to consider the $5.4-million purchase of what was once the Suwannee Hotel at 501 First Ave. N. Although the 10-story building was converted into office space in the early 1980s, it remains one of the city's more historic buildings. At the same time, the commission will be asked to consider demolition of the old County Building at 150 Fifth St. N about two years from now. In the interim, offices in that building would be moved into the former Suwannee, which has about three times the space of the County Building. As the deal stands, the county would lease the former Suwannee building for the next two years, then purchase it outright. The former hotel is now called the 501 Building, but for a stretch in the 1980s and part of the '90s, it was known as the NCNB Building. County officials have been making inquiries about office space in the area around the St. Petersburg courts complex for about a year, originally as rental space. The idea was to move offices out of the County Building, extensively renovate the late-1940s structure, then move back in. "But then the costs associated with renovation started to get prohibitive," said Carl Barron, the county's director of general services. "Asbestos removal, air conditioning and mechanical systems, plumbing, electrical, life-safety codes" and making the building accessible to the handicapped were areas where costs escalated. "Then, when we'd be finished, we'd have less usable square footage than we have today," Barron said. At the same time, some county offices now in isolated locations have been trying to locate closer to existing county offices. Enter the 501 Building, which has about 95,000 square feet of office space. The County Building, by comparison, has about 36,000 square feet. The 501 Building "was never formally offered on the market for sale, but we've had a few offers on it over the last 18 months," said Mark Stroud, the Echelon International real estate agent representing the building's Sarasota-based owners. "The county originally looked at it planning to rent. But then it began to make more sense for them to purchase because they can find uses for the rest of the space." The deal for the 501 Building includes the adjacent parking garage as well as the street-level parking lot across from the building on the southwest corner of First Avenue N and Fifth Street. If the county building does come down, Barron said, the space could be landscaped and possibly reserved for a future use, such as expansion of the parking garage. As for the office building itself, extensive renovation in recent years has left it in excellent condition, said Barron and Ellyn Kadel, the county's real estate manager. Barron recalled when other owners offered Pinellas the same building 10 years ago, before the latest renovations. The asking price then: $8-million to $10-million, depending on the renovation.
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