The St Petersburg Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) voted unanimously on Thursday to approve a proposed 15-story development at the southwest corner of 1st Ave North and Dr. MLK Jr. Street in St Pete’s EDGE District, giving the final greenlight to an exciting Opportunity Zone project that has been in the works since late last year.

St. Pete Rising first reported on the proposed development by Belpointe, tentatively referred to as 1000 1st Avenue North, earlier this year.

The $70 million project will feature two, 15-story apartment towers with a combined 254 rental units. The 11-story residential buildings will sit atop a four-story base that will contain 21,463 square feet of ground floor retail and 4,040 square feet of space for a leasing office and two resident lobbies. A 380-space parking garage will also be constructed to service the building residents and retail space.

In addition to residential units and retail space, the project promises to contribute to a reimagined Baum Avenue. The plan is to reimagine the street, which currently serves as a back-of-house for Central Avenue businesses, as a community hub by activating it as a pedestrian corridor. Art elements, small pop-up retail kiosk spaces, and a park for casual gathering feature heavily in the design, which the development team created in close collaboration with the EDGE District, members of the community, and the City.

After months of working closely with the EDGE Business District Association and other community stakeholders, some modifications to the original proposal were made to satisfy community wishes, including pedestrian enhancements and retail space along Baum Avenue, pedestrian walkways connecting 1st Avenue North to Baum Avenue, a community compactor for garbage that local businesses can access, and a “pocket park” and public art installation at the east end of Baum Avenue. 

The art installation will commemorate the former Shirley Ann Hotel, a now vacant property that exists at 936 1st Avenue North, by repurposing the original structure. The Shirley Ann Hotel is not a locally or nationally designated historical structure nor is it on the potentially eligible list. Preserve the Burg was consulted in making the decision to remove and honor the hotel in this new, creative way.

“[This is] a really interesting way to give homage to what the old streetscape used to look like,” noted St. Pete City Councilwoman Darden Rice. “You can see how it's going to be a very creative use of space, and I think it's exciting.”

As a result of the changes to the development, such as the pedestrian and streetscaping improvements, the opportunity remains to close off Baum Avenue for events, such as street festivals, markets, and more.

“This development team has been a model of working with the neighborhood and the community despite a lot of demands, and that was really for the purpose of fortifying the EDGE District Improvement Plan and our Baum Beautification Plan,” said Barbara Voglewede, Executive Director of the EDGE Business District Association. “We have been working hand and hand with the city and the developers from the beginning, and we’ve had many internal meetings to discuss what the community wanted, as well as, what fits into our improvement plan.” 

Though the EDGE Districts Improvement Plan is technically not the same as St Petersburg CRA’s Intown West Redevelopment Plan (IWRP), upon which the CRA must evaluate the project, the EDGE District, the City, and the developer worked together so that all stakeholder needs were satisfied and any discrepancies resolved.

“There’s a lot to like in this project. The housing, the commercial space, the retail space, the pocket park, and the one thing that we value a lot here in St Petersburg is our developers working with neighborhood associations,” emphasized St. Pete City Council Chairman Ed Montanari. “I really appreciate that sort of work.”

The CRA’s vote of approval today was the final hurdle in the project approval process. Once the project is fully permitted, construction can begin. Although there is no official timeline, it is expected the earliest it could be completed is 2023.

You can see more of St Pete Rising’s coverage of the 1000 1st Ave N project, including building details, sites sketches, and more here.