A new sensory play studio designed for young children will open in Pinellas Park next month.

Willow & Wonder will celebrate its grand opening Sunday, November 1st, at 6541 44th Street North, Unit 6004, near the recently opened Sprowls Horizon Sports Park.

The 1,700-square-foot studio is designed for children ages 0 to 7 and will offer a lower-stimulation alternative to traditional indoor playgrounds.

During 90-minute open-play sessions, children can move at their own pace between a play area, rotating sensory stations, and an art studio.

Each visit will include themed sensory bins and a process-art activity, and children will leave with a craft.

The woodland-themed studio will contain a collection of custom-made wood furnishings, including a play cottage, mud kitchen, dollhouse, children’s tables and chairs, and a crawler area for infants.

A vacant site across from Lealman Elementary School will become a permanently affordable townhome community for 26 local families.

Habitat for Humanity Tampa Bay Gulfside and local officials gathered Thursday at 4000 58th Avenue North to mark the start of infrastructure work for Lealman Heights, a two-story townhome development at the corner of 58th Avenue North and 40th Street North.

The 26 townhomes are part of a broader 57-home Habitat community in Lealman, which will also include 31 single-family homes now under construction.

“Lealman Heights represents more than the construction of new homes,” Mike Sutton, president and CEO of Habitat for Humanity Tampa Bay Gulfside, said at the groundbreaking. “It represents opportunity, stability, and a brighter future for local families who have worked hard and dreamed of the chance to own a home in the community they love.”

The 26 townhomes will each span 1,500 square feet and include three bedrooms and a garage. The homes will be priced between $240,000 and $280,000, based on a buyer’s income.

High Point Engineering and G2 Design are leading the project team.

Habitat expects vertical construction to begin in summer 2027.

A beachfront property known for its pink cottage-style villas on St. Pete Beach could be replaced with a six-story, 34-room resort under plans recently presented to neighboring condominium owners.

Kevin Bowden, who owns the Miramar Beach Resort on St. Pete Beach and the Cambria Hotel in Madeira Beach, is proposing to redevelop the 0.89-acre Beach Haven Villas property at 4980 Gulf Boulevard.

The property is in St. Pete Beach’s Large Resort District, which allows up to 50 hotel rooms per acre.

Bowden purchased Beach Haven Villas for approximately $6.24 million in January 2025.

The 1949-built hotel temporarily closed after Hurricanes Helene and Milton damaged several units. It has since reopened following repairs but does not meet current FEMA requirements.

Under the proposed plan, the existing 18-unit hotel, pool, and parking area would be demolished for a new 34-room boutique resort with covered parking at ground level, four floors of guest rooms, a restaurant and bar overlooking the Gulf of Mexico, and an open-air, covered rooftop lounge.

Pre-leasing is now underway at 3rd & 3rd, a 33-story apartment tower expected to welcome its first residents in mid-December in downtown St. Petersburg.

The 262-unit building is located at 235 3rd Street South across from the Publix-anchored University Village shopping center. Third Lake Partners, along with St. Pete-based developer Echelon, are developing the project.

KAST Construction broke ground on the tower about two years ago.

3rd & 3rd will include one-, two-, three-, and four-bedroom residences, including three four-bedroom penthouses, along with a 330-space parking garage and approximately 15,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space.

One-bedrooms are currently priced from $2,730 to $3,075 a month, while two-bedroom residences start at $4,570 and three-bedroom units start at $8,585.

The development is already 20% reserved, according to Echelon Senior Vice President of Development Cody LeClair.

A three-story office building at the Sky Town development in St. Pete’s Skyway Marina District will be converted into a self-storage facility, Third Lake Development announced this month.

The Tampa-based firm, which specializes in multifamily and self-storage, revealed a rendering of the 87,705-square-foot Centro Storage, which is expected to include 858 units and be completed by 2028. An address for the building has not yet been assigned.

In September, Third Lake Development acquired the building for $6.2 million from Coral Gables-based Altis Cardinal, led by developer Frank Guerra, the developer behind the $800 million, 34.3-acre Sky Town on the former Ceridian office campus.

Called Centro Storage, the facility is expected to include 858 climate-controlled units and be completed in 2028.

Just in time for Halloween, a 1939 bungalow in the Central Oak Park neighborhood will become a new home for St. Petersburg’s paranormal activity.

Dr. Brandy Stark, founder of Spirits of St. Petersburg, will soft open the Museum of Haunted History at 4754 1st Avenue North on Friday and Saturday, October 23 and 24, from 6 to 9 p.m.

The museum will display haunted and historic objects, including a wedding dress associated with a spirit named Irene, antiques, dolls, and artifacts from the group’s past investigations.

It will also include a spiritual apothecary and space for psychic readings, workshops, meetings, and future overnight investigations.

Stark has been investigating paranormal activity since 1997. She has led local ghost tours, investigated hundreds of cases, and written Supernatural St. Petersburg and Paranormal Pinellas Vol. 1 & 2.

“I’ve always wanted to present the supernatural in a manner that, number one, is safe, number two, is educational, and number three, is a little bit of fun,” Stark said in a conversation with St. Pete Rising.

Plans have been revealed for two 44-story condominium towers at the site of the Hilton St. Petersburg Bayfront, in what would be one of the largest condo developments ever proposed for downtown St. Pete.

Delray Beach-based Kolter Urban recently circulated a site plan application to neighborhood and business associations outlining a $325 million redevelopment of the hotel property at 333 1st Street South.

If built as proposed, the towers would rise up to 509 feet. Only two existing or planned towers in St. Petersburg would be taller: the 515-foot Residences at 400 Central and the 539-foot Waldorf Astoria Residences planned at 150 2nd Avenue South.

The two new towers, which have been designed by 10 Design, would tie for the city’s third-tallest buildings, ahead of the 450-foot Art House and ONE St. Petersburg towers and the 408-foot Saltaire.

The proposal calls for 325 condo units, 17,988 square feet of commercial space, and a 519-space parking garage.

Kolter would also make 207 spaces in the adjacent Saltaire garage available to residents, for a total of 726 parking spaces.

Golden Corral is returning to Pinellas County with plans for its first St. Pete restaurant inside the former Hooters at Tyrone Square Mall.

The popular American all-you-eat buffet chain will open at 2250 Tyrone Boulevard, according to plans submitted to the City of St. Petersburg. An opening date has not yet been announced.

The 8,105-square-foot restaurant will take over the building where Hooters operated for 15 years, from 2006 until late 2021. At the time, the chain cited changes in shopping habits and declining mall foot traffic in announcing the closure.

The new Golden Corral will be operated by franchisee Britt Guyer, who owns Golden Corral restaurants in Winter Haven and Tampa. Guyer was not immediately available for comment.

Demolition work has begun at the former Tampa Bay Times building at 490 1st Avenue South in downtown St. Petersburg, nearly two years after a construction crane collapsed into the property during Hurricane Milton.

Crews are currently completing interior, non-structural demolition and asbestos abatement, according to City of St. Petersburg permit records.

The eight-story, 240,000-square-foot complex consists of three buildings, with the original structure built in 1924 and additions completed in 1968 and 1988.

Naples-based Stock Development purchased the former Times building in June for $18 million.

The developer plans to redevelop the site with a high-rise condominium tower that could also include ground-floor commercial space and offices.

St. Petersburg has a rule that protects our waterfront. If the city wants to lease public waterfront land for longer than a short term, voters decide. That rule is worth keeping, and a "yes" vote on Charter Amendment #2 does not weaken it.

Here is what it changes. Under the City Charter, Port leases are capped at 10 years unless voters approve more in a citywide referendum. Charter Amendment 2 would raise that cap to 25 years, the same limit Albert Whitted Airport has had since 2004, when voters raised it from five years. Giving the Port the same terms as its neighbor is sensible.

Here is what it does not change. The ballot language says the amendment "would not change the permitted use of the Port." It does not approve residential development at the site, and it does not approve any redevelopment of the Port. It changes one number, the maximum lease length. Every lease would still go through the city administration and City Council. The amendment does not hand anyone a blank check. It lets the city negotiate from a stronger position.

After more than three decades as The Melting Pot and a short run as Sesh St. Pete, the building on 4th Street North will now become home to a Brooklyn-Italian restaurant built around the food one family grew up eating.

Pelato, a Brooklyn-Italian restaurant known for shareable small plates, is planning to open at 2221 4th Street North.

Nashville-based Avenue T Hospitality Group recently purchased the 7,630-square-foot property for $4 million, according to a deed recorded October 7th.

The hospitality group, which operates Pelato locations in Nashville and Franklin, Tennessee, and Charleston, South Carolina, also obtained a $5.355 million loan from Pinnacle Bank in connection with the purchase.

An opening date has not been announced.

Noble Tavern has opened a new event space next door to its restaurant in downtown St. Pete.

Called The Sterling, the space is located at 1650 Central Avenue in the Grand Central District, on the ground floor of the Tru by Hilton hotel and beside Duckweed Urban Grocery.

The room has a separate entrance on Central Avenue and will be available for private and business events, including holiday parties, birthdays, showers, rehearsal dinners, wedding welcome events, and meetings.

It can seat about 40 guests or accommodate up to 65 for cocktail-style receptions.

The Sterling includes a buffet station, climate control, a 75-inch television with HDMI connectivity for presentations, and access to Noble Tavern’s food and bar offerings.

Event hosts can choose from family-style or buffet menus, along with beverage packages that include wine, beer, spirits, and select Noble Tavern cocktails.

At St. Pete Rising, we are constantly providing comprehensive coverage on everything new and coming soon to the Sunshine City, but we think it’s also important to take a look back at our city's rich history.

Introducing Historically St. Pete, a new monthly column on St. Pete Rising written by Rui Farias, Executive Director of the St. Petersburg Museum of History, which will cover everything from the legend of underground mobster tunnels to the buildings and people that created the Sunshine City.

Follow us each month as we explore how these projects shaped St. Pete into the city we know and love today.

This month, we explore the history of downtown St. Petersburg's Open Air Post Office, one of the first of its kind in the United States.

A new jewelry and lifestyle shop is coming to the EDGE District of downtown St. Pete.

August Mae will open at 907 Central Avenue in a 736-square-foot storefront between Fusillo Pasta and Sunshine City Paint. The space previously housed vintage shop Now and Then, which closed in 2021.

The new shop, which hopes to open by the end of the year, will specialize in water- and tarnish-proof, demi-fine jewelry made with 14-karat gold-filled and sterling-silver materials. Demi-fine jewelry uses higher-quality metals while remaining more accessible than fine jewelry.

Customers can also choose from permanent bracelets and necklaces, create their own charm jewelry, or order personalized pieces through August Mae’s in-house engraving service.

Additionally, the shop will carry a curated selection of apparel, accessories, beauty and self-care products, candles, glassware, gifts, and small home items.

“The store is actually going to be more of a lifestyle shop,” owner Cory Lawler said in a conversation with St. Pete Rising. “I want it to be an experience. You can come in and get custom-fitted jewelry, make jewelry, buy something for whatever you’re looking for, whatever the occasion is.”

A new Italian breakfast and coffee café is coming to the EDGE District of downtown St. Pete.

Café Bavaro will debut on Friday, October 16th, inside Bavaro’s at 945 Central Avenue.

The café will serve espresso drinks, breakfast plates, bagels, and sandwiches from 8 to 11:30 a.m., before Bavaro’s regular lunch service begins at noon.

“This has been in the works for a while, and we are excited about finally executing it,” Kaleigh DeSousa, manager of Bavaro’s St. Pete location, said in a conversation with St. Pete Rising.

Café Bavaro first opened at Bavaro’s Clearwater Beach location last year, giving the family a chance to build out the breakfast-and-coffee concept before bringing it to St. Pete.

The menu will include the usual espresso-based coffee drinks, from cappuccinos and flat whites to cortados, lattes, and Americanos. It will also offer specialty drinks including cannoli and tiramisu lattes, along with matcha, a limoncello refresher, and mimosas.

St. Petersburg will test a new plant-based approach to managing stormwater as part of a $7 million project coming to one of the city’s most flood-prone areas.

The city will install eight HydroPlanters, which are modular rain gardens designed to slow and filter rain runoff before it enters the city’s stormwater system.

Each rain garden is about five feet long, three feet wide, and two-and-a-half feet deep.

Filled with specially designed soil, grasses, shrubs, and small trees, the boxes will be installed in an L-shaped configuration along a city-owned grassy area near the intersection of 50th Avenue North and 7th Street North.

During heavy rain, water from the street will flow into the planters and filter through the soil and vegetation. It will then drain into the city’s stormwater system and eventually the 54th Avenue Canal.

A familiar Pinellas County doughnut shop is coming to South Pasadena.

Fray’s Donut House will open at 1200 Pasadena Avenue South, taking over the former Dunkin’ location just down the street from Ted Peters Famous Smoked Fish.

The shop is expected to open in January 2027.

Serey Siev, who will co-own and operate the shop with his wife, Phiny Long, purchased the building for $925,000, according to Pinellas County property records.

The building will receive mostly cosmetic updates before reopening, including the installation of Fray’s familiar white sign with red and black lettering.

The South Pasadena location will serve more than 30 types of doughnuts, from glazed, chocolate frosted, cinnamon sugar, Boston cream, rainbow sprinkle, and old fashioned varieties to cronuts, apple fritters, and éclairs.

The shop will also serve muffins, cinnamon rolls, breakfast sandwiches, espresso drinks, and drip coffee.

Shake Shack and Dutch Bros Coffee are headed to Pinellas Park.

Plans filed with the city show the two chains proposed for neighboring lots at 6994 U.S. Highway 19 North, across from The Shoppes at Park Place and next to a future EōS Fitness Center.

The 1.83-acre property is currently home to a Walgreens, which would be demolished to make way for the two new buildings.

Shake Shack would occupy a 3,493-square-foot restaurant at the corner of 70th Avenue North and U.S. Highway 19 North, while Dutch Bros would open a 1,025-square-foot coffee shop directly across from it.

Both locations are planned with two-lane drive-thrus. Shake Shack would include indoor seating, while Dutch Bros would operate solely through its drive-thru and walk-up window.

Drive-thrus are a newer addition to Shake Shack’s business model; the company started adding them to new locations in 2021. As of last year, the company only had 39 locations with drive-thru lanes.

In late January, pottery artist Beth Miranda woke up before sunrise to a devastating call from her business partner, Ethan Fielder.

Their community studio, St. Pete Ceramics, was engulfed in flames.

The fire tore through much of the interior, including walls, shelving, tables, stools, and other equipment. Two rabbits that lived at the studio also died.

Miranda arrived at the studio, which is located at 593 22nd Street South in the Warehouse Arts District, around 5:15 a.m. after calling her husband in Philadelphia and taking a moment to process what she had just learned.

“I got here and dealt with everything. Then I sent a text to friends in the local clay community and said, ‘Guys, I just need prayer. This is happening,’” Miranda said in a conversation with St. Pete Rising.

Fellow artists arrived with bagels, coffee, pizza, gloves, and a willingness to help however they could. Within roughly 36 hours, volunteers had helped empty and clean out the fire-damaged studio.

The Florida Holocaust Museum in downtown St. Pete is planning a $15 million renovation that will create an immersive theater for interactive Holocaust survivor testimonies and expanded exhibition space.

Located at 55 5th Street South, the museum will renovate existing first- and third-floor spaces rather than expand the museum’s physical footprint.

The new first-floor Immersive Theater will become a larger home for Dimensions in Testimony, a digital experience that allows visitors to ask questions of Holocaust survivors and receive answers drawn from pre-recorded interviews.

Developed by the USC Shoah Foundation, the technology uses voice activation and natural-language processing to match visitors’ questions with relevant recorded responses.

“Each survivor has been asked over 1,000 questions,” Museum President and CEO Eric Stillman said in a conversation with St. Pete Rising. “When a viewer asks a question, the technology picks up certain words and responds with the survivor’s recorded response from the earlier questioning. It becomes like a real in-person dialogue.”

After a sudden opportunity arose just four blocks from its current shop, Pete’s Bagels is preparing to move into a new space twice the size of its current location in the Grand Central District.

The local bagel company will relocate from 2361 1st Avenue South to 1900 1st Avenue South, a 4,200-square-foot repurposed Quonset hut that most recently housed the vegan restaurant Good Intentions, which closed earlier this summer after four years in business.

Pete’s plans to close its current shop for one day on Monday, October 5th, while its team moves equipment and furnishings overnight. The new location is expected to open Tuesday, October 6th.

Owner Steven Peterman said Pete’s was not actively searching for a larger space, but its current landlord planned work to the property that would have required the business to close temporarily.

The owners of the Good Intentions building, who also own Pete’s former production kitchen, reached out about the available space.

After nearly three years in the EDGE District, The Sourdough Co. is preparing to relocate to one of downtown St. Pete’s most recognizable historic buildings.

The bakery and café will move from 1113 Central Avenue to the former Union Trust bank building at 895 Central Avenue.

The 1926 building has remained vacant since its last bank tenant left in 1996.

The Sourdough Co. will occupy nearly 11,000 square feet across the building’s ground floor, mezzanine, and basement.

Owner Ariana Duksa announced the move on social media Monday.

“From baking inside our home to filling a historic building in the heart of St. Pete… we can hardly believe we get to say that,” Duksa wrote. “Thank you to every person who has ever purchased a loaf, pastry, coffee or meal from us. From a cottage bakery, to our first storefront, to this beautiful historic bank.”

Before opening its first storefront in 2023, The Sourdough Co. operated as a cottage bakery out of Duksa’s Seminole home.

Construction is underway on Azalea Cay, a planned 1,000-unit apartment community on the former Raytheon property in west St. Pete.

Tampa-based Metro Development Group, St. Pete-based Porter Development, and local elected officials broke ground Monday morning on the first phase of the project at 1501 72nd Street North, near Azalea Park and Tyrone Square Mall.

The $109.8 million first phase will bring 341 apartments, including 102 income-restricted homes.

Fifty-one apartments will be reserved for households earning up to 80% of the area median income (AMI), while another 51 will be available to households earning up to 120% of AMI.

“I look around and I envision someday teachers, nurses, first responders coming home from a tough day at work and calling Azalea Cay home,” Les Porter, president of Porter Development, said during the ceremony. “Maybe one of the big reasons why they’re still able to live in St. Pete is because of the rent associated with their apartment.”

The remaining 239 apartments will rent at market rate. The income-restricted units must remain affordable for at least 50 years.

After 12 years in the EDGE District, Brooklyn South has permanently closed.

Karen Kramer, who has owned the sandwich shop at 1437 Central Avenue with her husband Mark since 2024, told St. Pete Rising they “just couldn’t keep up with rising costs.”

The financial pressure had surfaced before the closure. In a response to an online review last year, Kramer wrote that Central Avenue rent and food costs had become overwhelming and that she had made significant sacrifices to keep Brooklyn South going.

It was work, she said, she did for the joy it brought people rather than for the money.

Brooklyn South opened in July 2014 under founder Matt Bonano, a trained chef whose route to St. Pete ran through the cheese world. Bonano had worked at Atlanta’s Alon’s Bakery & Market and later became wholesale production manager for Murray’s Cheese in New York.

He moved from Brooklyn to Gulfport and named the deli Brooklyn South because St. Pete reminded him of the “Brooklyn of the South.”

For generations of St. Pete residents, The Chattaway has been the kind of place people do not simply visit. They return to it.

They come back for the cheeseburgers, the beer, the photos and plaques crowding the walls, and the leafy courtyard that feels tucked away from the city around it.

Some remember riding bikes there as kids. Others had first dates beneath its trees. Nearly everyone has a story.

Today, that story enters a new chapter.

The Chattaway has reopened at 358 22nd Avenue South after Cullen Mahoney, Ferg’s Sports Bar owner Mark Ferguson, and Shrimpy’s Waterfront owner John John Delladonna purchased both the restaurant and the 0.70-acre property beneath it.

Customers returning today will find the familiar restaurant, with several practical upgrades designed to make it work better day to day.

For years, the second floor of a downtown St. Pete beer and wine bar has been used mostly for private events and overflow seating.

This weekend, Green Bench Brewing will turn that space into a new concept of its own.

Upstairs at Webb’s will begin service Friday, September 25th, at 4 p.m. above Webb’s City Cellar, Green Bench Brewing’s specialty beer and wine bar at 1133 Baum Avenue North.

The new bar and lounge will launch during Green Bench’s 13th anniversary celebration, offering a beverage program built around a somewhat unexpected idea: texture.

“The menu itself is completely built around the concept of texture and how you can use texture to manipulate the experience with products,” Green Bench Brewing owner and brewer Khris Johnson said in a conversation with St. Pete Rising. “It’s supposed to be exploration-focused, a deep dive into not just products, but service and hospitality centered around beer that you just don’t get anywhere else.”

That idea will shape nearly every drink served upstairs.

A beer poured downstairs or next door at Green Bench may also be available upstairs, but it will not necessarily taste or feel the same.

St. Petersburg’s oldest arts institution is preparing for the most ambitious expansion in its more than 100-year history.

New renderings have been revealed for the first phase of Arts Center Association, Inc.’s $34 million expansion of the Morean Arts Center at 719 Central Avenue in downtown St. Pete.

The redevelopment calls for a new five-story arts center on an existing surface parking lot at the corner of 8th Street and Central Avenue, bringing the Arts Center and the Chihuly Collection, currently located across the street at 720 Central Avenue, under one roof.

Designed by Wannemacher Jensen Architects, the new building would feature a largely white exterior wrapped in slender vertical fins.

At street level, a sweeping, wave-like opening would rise from the ground floor and fold into the façade, creating a sculptural entrance inspired by the fluid forms and luminous colors of Dale Chihuly’s glasswork.

Madeira Beach’s longtime grocery store is reopening this week in a new format.

Aldi will debut this Thursday, September 24th, at 15200 Municipal Drive in Carter Plaza, across from Archibald Beach Park and R.O.C. Park.

The store replaces the former Winn-Dixie, which closed last year after more than 50 years in business. The Municipal Drive store was built in 1975 and had operated as a Winn-Dixie ever since.

Winn-Dixie Liquors will remain open.

To mark the grand opening, the first 200 customers in line Thursday will receive a bag of branded items and a “golden ticket,” an Aldi gift card worth up to $100. Employees will also distribute free Aldi shopping totes throughout the day.

The store will be open daily from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.