619-unit Skyway Marina apartment project cleared to move forward after appeal denied
/Alton Skyway, a 619-unit apartment community proposed for the Skyway Marina District in St. pete | kolter multifamily
St. Petersburg City Council denied an appeal last Thursday challenging a previously approved 619-unit apartment development known as Alton Skyway in the Skyway Marina District, allowing the project to move forward.
The appeal failed in a 6-1 vote, with Councilmember Deborah Figgs-Sanders casting the lone vote supporting the appeal. Councilmember Brandi Gabbard was absent.
The project, proposed by developer Kolter Multifamily, will be constructed on a 17.25-acre property at 3200 34th Street South, replacing a former St. Petersburg College public safety training property with eight five-story apartment buildings.
The first phase of development will include 342 apartments across four buildings on the southern portion of the site, while phase two will add the remaining 277 units in four additional buildings on the northern portion of the property.
The community will contain one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments ranging from 618 to 1,322 square feet.
At full buildout, the development will have 883 parking spaces, exceeding the minimum requirement of 775 spaces.
Plans also set aside a one-acre outparcel on the southwest corner of the property for a future 5,000-square-foot commercial building, though no retail space is currently included in the approved site plan.
Alton skyway will be developed on a 17.25-acre site currently home to the St. Petersburg College Allstate Campus | Google Maps
The appeal was filed by Frank Guerra of Altis Cardinal, the developer behind the mixed-use Sky Town project across 34th Street South.
Sky Town will bring 2,084 apartments, 69,000 square feet of retail anchored by a recently opened Sprouts Farmers Market, and 120,000 square feet of self-storage to the district—making it the area’s largest mixed-use development.
Guerra argued Kolter’s proposal conflicted with the Skyway Marina District Plan, which City Council adopted in 2015 to guide redevelopment along the corridor.
“We’re disappointed that the City Council didn’t follow the very plan that they adopted themselves in 2015,” Guerra said in a conversation with St. Pete Rising.
At the center of the dispute was whether the project should have been required to include retail along 34th Street South, similar to several other apartment developments approved in the district over the last decade.
During the hearing, Guerra argued every previous market-rate multifamily project approved in the district included retail components and accused the city of applying different standards to Kolter’s proposal.
The site plan for Alton skyway | kolter multifamily
Guerra also challenged the project’s impervious surface ratio calculations.
Impervious surface ratio measures how much of a property is covered by surfaces that prevent water from soaking into the ground.
Guerra argued the development’s stormwater pond should count as impervious surface because it is designed to retain water. If counted that way, he said the project would exceed the maximum ratio allowed under the site’s zoning.
City staff and the applicant’s engineering team disagreed, maintaining the pond functions as part of the site’s stormwater system and complies with city regulations.
Planning staff repeatedly emphasized during the hearing that multifamily housing is permitted by right under the site’s Retail Center (RC-1) zoning designation and that the project met all applicable development standards, including density, height, parking, and impervious surface requirements.
Staff also argued that while the Skyway Marina District Plan encourages mixed-use development and retail activation, the plan itself was adopted as a guiding framework rather than a binding land development regulation.
Attorney Elise Batsel of Stearns Weaver Miller, representing Kolter, pushed back on the appeal.
“Let’s call it what it is — a competitor trying to slow down residences from being built across the street. Period,” Batsel said.
Batsel also noted that the project intentionally offers a different type of housing product not found in many of the district’s newer developments.
Rather than structured parking garages and podium-style construction, the proposal relies on large surface parking areas, which Batsel said would allow rents to come in roughly $300 to $500 lower per month than nearby projects.
alton skyway wll offer one, two and three-bedroom apartments | kolter multifamily
Supporters of the project repeatedly pointed to the city’s growing housing shortage during public comment.
Several Stetson University College of Law students spoke in favor of the project, describing the difficulty of finding attainable housing near campus and throughout St. Pete.
“Our community is lacking a third option, the middle ground between both ends of the spectrum,” said Aliyah Shriver during public comment. “This project and the revitalization of 34th Street as a whole provides the solution.”
Others strongly opposed the proposal, including representatives of the Skyway Marina District organization, who argued the development falls short of the district’s long-term vision for a walkable mixed-use corridor anchored by retail and community spaces.
District president Frank Marsalisi warned that approving the project could create a precedent for future developers to avoid retail altogether.
“Once the project’s built, the city has lost its leverage to ensure any type of meaningful mixed-use activation even occurs,” Marsalisi said during the hearing.
Figgs-Sanders echoed several of those concerns before casting the sole vote supporting the appeal.
She questioned whether “market-rate” apartments truly address affordability issues in the area and criticized what she viewed as insufficient outreach to nearby neighborhoods.
“When I hear market rate several times, market rate in my book means my child is still at home because he can’t afford market rate,” Figgs-Sanders said.
The property is currently home to St. pete College’s Allstate Campus which will be demolished to make way for the apartment project | CoStar
Several other councilmembers ultimately sided with city staff and the Development Review Commission, which had previously approved the project in a 5-1 vote on March 4th.
Councilmember Copley Gerdes said the project aligned with the city’s zoning code and broader housing goals.
“The only way to make units more affordable is one of two ways,” Gerdes said during the hearing. “Either the demand goes down or folks come in and add to our inventory.”
Under city code, overturning the Development Review Commission’s approval required a supermajority vote of City Council, a threshold the appeal failed to reach.
Following the vote, Guerra said he remains concerned about what the decision could mean for future development within the district.
“The problem is the differential treatment,” Guerra said after the hearing. “You treated five projects one way and a sixth project comes along and you’re treating them differently.”
With the denial of the appeal by a majority vote, Kolter will move forward with closing on the property later this year. The developer has had the site under contract since October 2024 for $26 million.
While Alton Skyway is being developed by Kolter Multifamily, another division of Kolter Group, Kolter Urban, is best known in St. Pete for developing downtown condominium towers including ONE St. Petersburg, Saltaire, and Art House.
Kolter also recently purchased the Hilton St. Petersburg Bayfront hotel in downtown St. Pete for $96 million.
Kolter Urban is also behind Corey Landing, a proposed mixed-use waterfront development in St. Pete Beach that will feature 133 luxury condominiums, 11,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, a public park, and public dock space.
