After suffering significant damage from last year’s back-to-back hurricanes, a 10-story, 100-year-old building in downtown St. Pete is expected to be demolished and replaced with a boutique hotel.

Local entrepreneur and developer Steve Gianfilippo of Gianco Companies, who purchased the building at 300 Central Avenue in 2017, filed plans on Monday with the City of St. Pete for a 16-story hotel, named The Coronet, which will incorporate mid-century design elements reminiscent of the original structure.

The existing, vacant structure will undergo interim repairs while plans for the new hotel are being drawn up.

“In the seven years that I’ve owned the building, we’ve looked at a few different options,” said Gianfilippo in a conversation with St. Pete Rising. “At first, we considered turning it into fully furnished apartments. But with thousands of new apartments already planned or built recently, we saw a larger opportunity to bring a new boutique hotel to downtown St. Pete.”