bankunited will open a branch at 900 Central Avenue, out of the former anytime fitness space | St. Pete rising

BankUnited, a regional bank headquartered in Miami Lakes, is opening a new branch at 900 Central Avenue, on the southwest corner of Central Avenue and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street North in downtown St. Pete.

The bank will occupy 2,700 square feet on the first floor of the building, most recently home to Anytime Fitness, which closed in late 2022.

Built in 1918 as the Western Hotel, and renamed the St. Petersburg Hotel two years later, the three-story brick structure is the EDGE District's oldest building.

Over more than a century, the building has housed a post office, a drug store, a grocer, and a string of other businesses.

The building is widely credited with helping spur downtown St. Pete’s westward expansion, though despite its age and historical significance, it does not hold national or local landmark designation.

florida-based bankunited operates over 4o locations throughout the state | Bankunited

In 2020, Silver Sands LLC, which purchased the property in 2019 for $5.75 million, filed plans to redevelop the parcel into a 12-story mixed-use building.

Plans were later revised by Houston-based Dinerstein Companies, which proposed a 14-story development. The $58.1 million project called for apartments, including a portion set aside for workforce housing, along with hotel rooms, commercial space, and parking.

Dinerstein was under contract to purchase the site from Silver Sands GND LLC but never closed on the property.

Since the redevelopment plans stalled, the building has begun to fill in with new tenants. Recent tenant announcements include wine bar Velvet Coupe, wine and floral concept Bouquet and Bordeaux, Central Express Vet, fitness concept Local Studio, women's boutique Peach Pump, and Burg Nutrition.

Founded in 2009, BankUnited is one of the largest independent depository institutions headquartered in Florida. It holds more than $35 billion in assets and offers consumer and commercial banking services to individuals, small businesses, middle-market companies, large corporations, and institutions.

The bank operates roughly 60 branches and banking centers, with the bulk in Florida and additional locations in New York, Dallas, Atlanta, Morristown, New Jersey, and Charlotte, North Carolina.

In the Tampa Bay area, BankUnited currently has offices in Clearwater, Sarasota, and Tampa. This location will be BankUnited's first branch in St. Petersburg.

"The Tampa region is a significant growth area across multiple business segments," BankUnited Chief Operating Officer Thomas Cornish said last year when announcing a new center replacing the bank's Westshore office in Tampa. "This move builds on our recent announcements of new corporate banking offices in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Morristown, New Jersey, and adds to the momentum of our growth in regions including Atlanta and Dallas."

An opening date has not yet been announced.