Downtown St. Pete’s Reflection condominium project continues to move toward ground breaking.

The 81-unit tower, which is proposed for the northeast corner of 3rd Avenue North and 8th Street, has surpassed $30 million in sales with reservations accounting for over 40% of the building.

Reflection is being developed by a team led by Fred Hemmer, a veteran of the real estate industry, along with local businessmen Chad Horne, Nick Hansen, and Angelo Cappelli. The group is under contract to purchase a parking lot which is currently owned and used by BridgePoint Church.

Two months ago when sales launched for Reflection St. Pete, a condominium tower planned near Mirror Lake in downtown St. Petersburg, many saw the location as pioneering.

Situated west of the downtown core, the area was untested for an 18-story condominium tower of this size. The thesis for the development is that there is demand for upscale condominium units within close proximity to the Central Arts District and the booming EDGE District. It appears they were right.

Despite COVID-19 and potential economic uncertainty, sales have exceeded initial expectations with over $20 million in reservations so far.

Sales have officially kicked off for a new condominium project planned near Mirror Lake in downtown St. Pete. Known as Reflection, the 18-story tower was announced in January and is proposed for the northwest corner of 3rd Avenue North and 8th Street.

Reflection will feature 88 residences along with 3,300 square feet of ground floor retail space.

Units in the building will range from 1,200 square feet to 2,300 square feet with between one and three bedrooms. Pricing is set to begin in the $500,000’s, which is about 20% lower than Beach Drive prices, and will rise to over $1 million. That pricing is attainable because of the project’s location west of the downtown core, an area which has seen an increase in development activity in recent years.

Fred Hemmer has lived in St. Petersburg for most of his life, and while he wasn’t born here, he calls St. Pete his home. After graduating from Boca Ciega High School he went on to study at St. Petersburg College and then the University of South Florida. Over the past few decades he has worked in banking and in real estate throughout Florida and has witnessed Downtown St. Pete’s transformation firsthand. Recently he even become a downtown resident himself.

After selling his Tierra Verde home, Hemmer and his wife moved into Camden Pier District, an 18-story apartment building in Downtown St. Pete. And although they traded their waterfront home for a high-rise, they viewed the move as an upgrade, “Downtown has so much entertainment to offer,” Hemmer says, “We were tired of always driving downtown and figured, ‘Why not just move there?’”