Huge 'success story'

Huge 'success story'

urban living by Dave Szymanski | Tampa Bay Editor

St. Petersburg has developed one of the most livable downtowns in Florida, but it took more than 20 years and many elements to create it.

About 20 years ago, there were maybe two restaurants in downtown St. Petersburg. And both were struggling.

Now there are about 100. And they sit among townhomes, condominiums, museums, stores, hotels, apartments, a park, bars, a marina, a yacht club, two baseball fields, a college, hospitals, churches, concert facilities, healthy surrounding neighborhoods, circulator buses and office buildings which serve as a backdrop to downtown events that include food, live music, art shows and auto racing.

"St. Petersburg is one of the most livable downtowns in the state," says Bruce Erhardt, executive director with commercial brokerage Cushman & Wakefield of Florida. "For a while, it was just elderly people, but that has changed."

Jane Dizona, first vice president of commercial brokerage CB Richard Ellis in Tampa, calls urban living in St. Petersburg "a huge success story."

"There's very few people who don't think they could live here," Dizona says. "People want to live where they work."

Why? Why has downtown St. Petersburg succeeded as a center for urban living while other Gulf Coast cities, even some with larger populations, such as Tampa, struggle to attract people to live in or near downtown or to visit downtown?

The answer includes a number of reasons, including dedicated and consistent business leadership, according to business leaders, brokers, developers and residents.

"A ton of things contributed to the success of this downtown," says Eliane Smalling, vice president of the St. Petersburg Downtown Partnership. "It didn't happen overnight."

And the momentum hasn't stopped. Inside the old Maas Brothers department store, the Florida International Museum once used its space.

When the museum relocated downtown, Progress Energy knocked the building down and built an office building on half of the site. On the other half, a developer, Kessler, is primed to break ground this summer on a mixed-use project with hotel and condominium units, called The Grand Bohemian.

Natural assets, rivalry

Most cities have natural elements they can exploit to attract people. In Tampa, it is the Hillsborough River. In St. Petersburg, it is the waterfront facing Tampa Bay.

Instead of allowing parking garages, office buildings and other development to pop up along the water, political and business leaders remained adamant about keeping it open and undeveloped. The result has been an attraction for walkers, bicyclists, inline skaters and people in general.

The presence of longstanding safe neighborhoods adjacent to downtown helped attract more residential and encouraged waterfront use.

Guiding this was a plan. Protecting the waterfront, encouraging residential and retail and redeveloping the vacant luxury hotel, The Vinoy, was part of the original plan that business and government leaders agreed on in the early 1980s in St. Petersburg and continued to believe in.

"This was a long struggle and I think the key was a fundamentally solid plan," says Marty Normile, former president of the St. Petersburg Downtown Partnership, an organization formerly known as St. Petersburg Progress in 1983 when Normile joined the business group.

Also driving the business leadership in St. Pete was a longstanding rivalry with Tampa.

"St. Petersburg always felt like the stepchild in the Tampa Bay area," Normile says. "Tampa got USF, the airport, the Tampa Bay Bucs and Busch Gardens. St. Pete lost out on all of these things."

So when Major League Baseball gave clues it was looking at other cities, St. Petersburg was determined to nab a team. The city council voted to use public funds to build Tropicana Field.

While it would be years before the city would attract a team, the development was a catalyst for other investment, such as the $93 million refurbishing of the Vinoy Hotel after a number of unsuccessful attempts.

Baseball and the backlash

The quest and capture of Major League Baseball did two things for downtown St. Petersburg: It brought development of Tropicana Field and its surrounding areas. It also caused a backlash in the arts community.

But instead of fuming and grumbling about the attention paid to baseball, arts fans rallied and developed more arts-oriented attractions downtown, including museums and galleries. The Mahaffey Theater renovated. New museums and art galleries moved in. It was win-win for the city.

"They were acting almost in defiance to the emphasis on baseball," Normile says. "The arts began to flourish and it developed to the point where St. Petersburg prides itself on the number of cultural institutions."

The latest news on the art front is that the Salvatore Dali Museum will be relocating to a better site downtown.

The arts community is also working to develop a new building for a chihuly gallery with a "hot shop" where glassmaking artisans can practice their craft.

Meanwhile, as residential, retail and the art-related businesses came downtown, office space became more attractive because people wanted to be near their office. The office vacancy rate now sits at 8%.

"The office market has improved because of the residential," Dizona says.

Baseball and transit

While professional baseball was a catalyst for downtown St. Petersburg, it also presents a challenge as the city looks to its future.

The Tampa Bay Rays want to move to an open-air location on the city's waterfront, where Al Lang Stadium now sits.

On the surface, this could be another win-win for downtown. The Tropicana Field site could be redeveloped. Al Lang could be enlarged, bringing more people downtown.

But challenges to this plan are strong. Among those: Financing, environmental impact (part of the waterfront will need to be filled in) and last, but certainly not least, parking.

Unlike the Tropicana Field site, which is a little west of downtown, the waterfront site is not surrounded by surface parking. Where will all the fans park?

The ultimate answer, and one that other Gulf Coast cities will have to look at if they want to enhace urban living, is mass transit, some business people say.

Without some way to bring people in and out of downtown, parking garages and parking lots will have to take the place of other downtown structures, which would rob downtown of some of its charm.

But then there is the cost of transit and traditional questions about how many people would ride such a system in Florida.

The city uses a bus shuttle service to take people to baseball games now. It works relatively smoothly taking fans to the games because people arrive at different times. But after the games, when all the fans come out at once, there are long lines and long waits for buses.

Unlike other areas of the country, Gulf Coast development can be spread out, and the Tampa Bay area, with downtown St. Petersburg, the Gateway area, Westshore and downtown Tampa, is not an exception. That makes developing a transit system more expensive and challenging.

But as land becomes more expensive for road right of way and gasoline costs rise, transit gets more attractive.

"There has to be an alternative to cars," Dizona says.

Downtown

ingredients

A number of different elements came together over 20 years to mold a livable downtown St. Petersburg. Some of those include:

An open waterfront with a marina and a park

Strong and persistent political and business leadership

The $93 million invested to refurbish the Vinoy hotel

Major League Baseball

The backlash against baseball that spurred the arts development

The existence of already safe and strong neighborhoods next to downtown

BayWalk, Sembler Co.'s two-level retail and restaurant development

Source: St. Petersburg Downtown Partnership,

commercial brokers, residents and developers

REVIEW SUMMARY

Industry: Residential and commercial development in urban areas

Key: Attract people to live in an urban core by offering a clean, safe, convenient place to live, work and play.