Bezu

City Council, Preserve the Burg, developer Michel Regignano and residents of the Flori de Leon. They’ve all been players in the Downtown St. Pete development saga that has played out over the last eighteen months. We’re talking about the controversial Blue Lotus (formerly Bezu) condominium project.

While many of you think you’ve been staying up to date, you probably don’t know all of the details. Or maybe you don’t know any details. Regardless, over the past year, we’ve heard comments such as “Wait… I thought that project was denied?” Or “Hasn’t that been approved already?” Well the answer to both is yes. Confused? We are here to help.

There are a lot of details to this story, let’s take a step back and remember how we got here…

With demand strong and land at a premium in Downtown St. Pete, real estate developers are increasingly turning to small parcels of land for large-scale projects. Most recently, The Bezu, which was announced last week at 100 Fourth Avenue North, is a proposed 24-story luxury condominium building at the site of the previously proposed Brownstones townhome project. That project, which was delayed for various reasons, proposed four large townhome units reminiscent of New York City’s brownstones. This new tower proposal is much denser in land use and features a sleek, modern building with 24 residences.