A pile of concrete and rebar is all that remains on one end of the former 380,000-square-foot Ceridian office park in St. Petersburg's Skyway Marina District where a new master-planned community will soon rise.

Coral Gables-based real estate company Altis Cardinal is redeveloping the 34.2-acre site at 3201 34th Street South into a new $500 million mixed-use destination - now called Sky Town.

Altis Cardinal purchased the property in December 2021 for $40 million.

Today, over half of the buildings at the former office park are demolished, and construction crews are preparing to bulldoze another building to make way for the future development.

The plans for Sky Town call for six five-story apartment buildings totaling 2,084 units, making it among the largest residential projects currently in development in St. Petersburg.

The project will also include over 80,000 square feet of retail space, 22,500 square feet of office space, 4,000 parking spaces, and 119,160 square feet of self-storage space.

Sky Town, previously named Skyway Village, was first unveiled in early 2023 and approved by the Development Review Commission in October of last year.

Altis Cardinal envisions Sky Town as a walkable residential and commercial community anchored by a 23,000-square-foot Sprouts Farmers Market.

"Residents are going to have a lot of what they need right at their doorstep. The Skyway Marina District sorely needs another grocer," Frank Guerra, Founder of Altis Cardinal, said to St. Pete Rising. 

"One of the biggest points of feedback we got from the surrounding community is the excitement surrounding the Sprouts going in. We think it will be a key driver in attracting other retailers for the young professional demographic."

This will be Sprouts’ fifth store in Pinellas County, where it also operates locations in Clearwater, Palm Harbor, Seminole, and Kenneth City.

Guerra says Sprouts has executed a lease agreement and the team is now finalizing the architecture and engineering plans. He hopes to get the building permit to break ground on the speciality grocer by September or October. 

Construction on stores for niche grocers such as Sprouts typically takes less than a year to complete. Pending getting the building permit in hand, Guerra estimates it will be complete by late 2025.

Following Sprouts, Altis Cardinal is hoping to break ground on the first multifamily building in the first quarter of 2025.

One rendering shows a five-story building directly across from Sprouts that will have 400 market-rate apartments and 14,000 square feet of retail.

"We will then break ground every 12 to 18 months on each multifamily phase," Guerra said. "The idea is to stagger not only the construction but also the leasing. We want to lease up the first phase as we are doing construction on the next phase."

Guerra says there has been a healthy amount of interest in Sky Town’s retail spaces, noting the team has received unsolicited interest from regional groups with coffee shops, wine bars, and more vying to secure a footprint in Sky Town.

Washington, DC-based WDG Architecture and civil engineering firm Stantec are on the master development team. Altis Cardinal has also procured a contractor and a lender.

Meanwhile, the existing nine-story office building will remain. It previously served as the St. Petersburg headquarters for Ceridian, a Minneapolis-based company that provides human resources software and services.

"When the development gets further along, we are going to market some of the floors in the building to office tenants who are looking to be in this submarket," Guerra said.  

The nine-story office tower will have a lounge area with views of the Clam Bayou preserve.

Altis Cardinal had retained Cushman and Wakefield as the commercial broker for the office leasing.