60-unit apartment building planned using factory-built construction system in St. Pete
/A 60-unit prefabricated apartment building is proposed for the Grand Central District | Blake Investment Partners
A St. Pete developer is planning a 60-unit apartment building in the Grand Central District that could demonstrate a quicker, potentially less expensive way to add housing to the city.
Blake Investment Partners plans to build a five-story apartment building at 3200 First Avenue South, at the corner of 31st Street South and First Avenue South, using a factory-built system from New York-based Vessel Technologies.
The building will be Vessel’s first Florida project and part of Whitney Village, a larger mixed-use development being constructed on the YMCA’s former athletic fields. The project also includes a 325-unit apartment community by Greystar, currently under construction, a future retail village, and 860 parking spaces.
The Vessel building is not being constructed through the traditional, site-built process used for most apartment projects.
Instead, Vessel will manufacture large steel-framed panels and other components in the Northeast, transport them to St. Petersburg, and assemble the completed building on-site.
The system includes the building’s steel structure, interior and exterior walls, cabinetry, elevators, stairwells, sprinklers, HVAC, plumbing, electrical systems, lighting, and interior finishes.
The savings come from repetition. Instead of designing a new building from scratch, sourcing materials separately, and resolving construction issues in the field for every project, Vessel uses a standardized design and purchases the same components at scale.
Manufacturing panels in a controlled factory setting also reduces material waste and rework, while a shorter construction schedule can lower labor and construction-interest costs.
Vessel uses fixed-price contracts with no change orders once the project is finalized, giving developers more certainty over the final cost.
For their St. Pete project, Blake Investment Partners will complete the site work, foundation, and utility connections before Vessel takes over the vertical construction and delivers the building ready for occupancy.
Once the foundation is complete, Vessel estimates its vertical construction process will take about six months, faster than a typical conventionally built mid-rise apartment project.
Floor plan of a one-bedroom unit in a Vessel building | Vessel Technologies
Vessel CEO Neil Rubler said the company was created to address a basic challenge in housing: New apartment buildings have increasingly been designed and priced for the highest end of the market.
“The goal was to create a super-high-quality product that would be attainable to working people,” Rubler said in a conversation with St. Pete Rising. “How do we develop a building system that can be replicated and reproduced in large quantities?”
Rather than designing every building from scratch, Vessel uses a standardized system that it can continuously refine. The company says the approach reduces material waste, limits change orders, and helps keep schedules more predictable while lowering development costs.
Vessel’s buildings generally range from 30 to 100 apartments, a scale where conventional multifamily construction can be difficult to make financially feasible.
The 60 apartments planned at Whitney Village will include 56 one-bedroom units and four two-bedroom units.
Homes will feature nine-foot ceilings, large windows, full kitchens, in-unit washers and dryers, oversized showers, and app-based controls for lighting, climate, and security.
The interiors will also skip a familiar apartment staple: painted drywall.
Vessel uses high-pressure laminate wall panels, a durable, non-combustible material designed to be antimicrobial and easy to clean. Rubler said the panels can be wiped down between residents rather than repainted, potentially reducing turnover time and operating costs.
The building will use steel construction and components engineered for Florida’s wind and coastal conditions. It will be all-electric and solar-compatible.
Vessel’s panels are currently manufactured in Pennsylvania, although Rubler said the company is looking for a Florida facility as it expands in the state.
Vessel has completed two apartment buildings in the Northeast and has several more under construction.
For Blake Investment Partners CEO Thompson Whitney Blake, the project is about more than one building.
The company originally planned to place apartments above the planned retail component at Whitney Village. But after listening to feedback from prospective tenants, Blake’s team reworked the plan, moving the residential component to the corner of 31st Street South and 1st Avenue South, separating it from the future retail village.
Rendering of a living room inside a one-bedroom unit at a Vessel building | Vessel Technologies
The revised plan also avoids directly competing with Greystar’s larger apartment community.
Blake said the new building is intended to create what he calls “achievable” housing: newer apartments that can be offered below the prevailing price of comparable new construction without relying on public subsidies or income-restricted housing programs.
“We’re thinking, ‘How low can we make the rents and still, as a private company, make money?’” Blake said in a conversation with St. Pete Rising. “That’s actually our goal.”
If successful, Blake said the building could become a model for other smaller sites around St. Petersburg, including parcels owned by churches, community organizations, and other groups with excess land but without the scale to pursue a conventional apartment development.
“This is actually a scalable fix for a real problem,” Blake said. “There’s not a single silver bullet here.”
A groundbreaking date for The Vessel has not yet been set.
Site plan for Whitney Village, featuring the 60-unit Vessel apartment building at the northeast corner and a retail village to the west | Blake Investment Partners
