Get the best to Trump the Slump

Get the best to Trump the Slump

commercial real estate update by Janet Leiser | Senior Editor

Only 45 of the 246 units at Signature Place remain available. One of the two largest penthouses, a three-level luxurious unit, sold for $3.6 million to a rock star. The developer owns the other.

Joel Cantor, a Wharton MBA graduate and longtime Tampa Bay area developer, boasts that his 36-floor tower in downtown St. Petersburg trumps the one planned by that other Wharton graduate across the bay in downtown Tampa - if that one is ever built.

Cantor hired one of the best architects in the country, Ralph Johnson of Chicago's Perkins + Will, to build Signature Place. Johnson, a modernist, designed the tower to look like a glass gossamer sail, similar to the ship models Cantor built as a child, and each of the 246 units will have a water view.

Maybe that's why only 45 units remain for sale.

Cantor says the project is expected to come in under its budgeted $167 million cost and it's ahead of schedule, with the first phase opening next March and the tower opening in March of 2009.

More than four-fifths of the units have sold even though a slowdown in residential activity has prompted some condo developers to offer promotions, such as a free car with the purchase of a unit, to boost sales.

There have been no Mercedes given away or offered at Cantor's development.

Cantor credits the project's success to its prime location at 100 First Ave. S., and its unique artistic design by Johnson. "It's not only pleasing aesthetically on the outside, but on the inside too," he says. "It's not just a square with an elevator shaft in the middle."

He says each unit is a work of art. In fact, he boasts that it'll be the finest building in Florida, maybe the country.

"This is really like no other building built," Cantor says. "And that's not just bravado. We have other developers saying you've lifted the bar two levels."

St. Petersburg zoning officials, he says, are also talking about stepping up the requirements for other new developments because of Signature Place.

In addition to the residences, the project will include 19,313 square feet of ground-floor retail, 36,737 square feet of office space and a five-story parking garage.

The garage will be topped by a 35,000-square-foot sky garden, a large landscaped park with a pool designed to create the illusion of a waterfall cascading down the side of the garage.

Fifth Third Bank, which is financing the project, will have a branch and its Tampa Bay corporate offices in the tower.

Cantor, who also happens to be a Fifth Third director, says the bank is going to make a big splash in the city.

Debbie Newman, sales director at Signature Place and a broker associate with Smith & Associates, says the real estate company, which represents several downtown St. Petersburg developments, recorded five contracts on new condos this month. Four were for Signature Place.

"I'll be sitting at a meeting with other (Smith) brokers and they are all talking about what can we do to get traffic, and I'm just real quiet," Newman says. "I'm OK."

Signature Place units, which range in size from 850 square feet to more than 5,000 square feet, start in the low $400,000s.

All contracts are non-refundable and require an initial deposit of 10% followed by a second 10% payment, Cantor says. And not a single buyer has backed out.

Creativity reigns

"It just shows when you gather together the best of the best world-class people known for their passion and creativity, it works," Cantor says.

"I let them run free, but I still challenge them."

He expects the best from those who work for him, he says, adding: "I'm a pretty demanding guy, I expect 140%."

Cantor, who worked on Wall Street before he started Gulf Atlantic Real Estate Cos. in Tampa in 1990, says the average unit price at Signature Place is $650,000.

"These are well off people who obviously can afford it," he says. "We don't attract investors. We designed the project for the exact target market."

The targeted client is empty nesters, of all ages, who own two or three homes, and who travel a lot. They don't want the upkeep of a large residence. Signature Place will offer affordable maintenance fees, he says, because there are 246 units versus 100 or less.

He says he knows from research and from his time at Wharton (he's a 1989 graduate), "which incidentally is the same school Trump went to, that about 95% of the time the good areas improve. Look at Park Avenue in New York. It was THE place in 1970 and today it has only gotten better."

Conversely, he says, marginal areas, those that aren't "Grade A," only improve about 30% of the time.

"I'm not a gambler and I don't believe in gambling," he says. "My building has always been the best location in St. Petersburg."

All the buzz

Only one of the 14 penthouses, called a junior penthouse, a 1,600-square-foot unit on the 34th floor, remains available, Newman says.

So far, Newman, another associate and two project architects, as well as Cantor, have purchased units.

Newman bought a three-bedroom condo on the 32nd floor.

"It says a lot about what we're doing here," she says. "We believe in our product."

January and February were busy months for sales at Signature Place. Realtors sold about 65 condos in January and another 75 in February, she says.

With about 150 people working on the project and two big cranes running, the construction activity attracts visitors and potential buyers, Newman says.

One couple that recently bought a unit told Newman that they'd just looked at another downtown condo project when they noticed the cranes so they stopped to see what was up.

"When the old office building was coming down (over the summer), people were lined up on the sidewalks drinking coffee and watching," she says.

The tower is expected to start "popping out of the ground" next month, she says.

Cantor says the project is 46 days ahead of schedule, thanks to the team's hard work.

"I personally have 9,000 hours in it," he says. "The team has been working day and night for two-and-a-half years."

REVIEW SUMMARY

Who. Joel Cantor

Company. Gulf Atlantic Real Estate Cos.

Key. The right location and unique design trump a downturn.

Of speeches and diapers

In the midst of building major projects such as St. Petersburg's Signature Place, Joel Cantor and his wife, Shannon, had their fourth son, Cooper, in September. Their oldest son is 20, while their twin boys are eight.

"He was a surprise," Cantor, 43, says of the baby.

Cantor has gone national and now international for the first time since he started his development company. He has ongoing developments in Colorado, Hawaii and Mexico.

In addition, his alma mater, Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, asked him to present at the 2007 economic summit, where other speakers include billionaires Sam Zell and Michael Milken.

In the middle of all that, he says, "I'm changing diapers. What a busy year."