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St. Pete condo building soars above city skyline, becomes tallest residential building on Florida's west coast

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Published  September 16, 2024 5:51pm EDT
St. Petersburg
FOX 13 News

The Residences at 400 Central topped out

Kailey Tracy reports

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Soaring above St. Petersburg’s skyline, The Residences at 400 Central in downtown, isn’t just the tallest building in the city. It’s the tallest residential building on the west coast of Florida.

"St. Pete has arrived," Mayor Ken Welch said. "It’s a great symbol of the progress we’re making here in the city of St. Pete."

The 46-story, 515-foot building fills up a full block of Central Avenue. It includes 301 luxury condominium units, office space and retail and restaurants on the ground floor.

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"To see this beautiful building that's changing the skyline of the city, it shows the development and the growth of the city," Former St. Pete Mayor Rick Kriseman said. "If you're going to have a world class city, which St. Petersburg is, you want buildings that have diverse architecture."

"It also comes to me as we went up to the 38th floor that you can see the entire city, and our whole approach is inclusive progress, and I think this is this kind of growth in downtown supports that progress moving forward," Welch said.

Monday, crews put the final beam in place during the topping out ceremony. It celebrates the completion of the structural phase of construction. Several other city leaders, including St. Pete City Council members were also in attendance. The building is set to open in the summer of 2025.

It’s a project developed by New York-based Red Apple Real Estate. The design team is led by the internationally renowned architectural firm, Arquitectonica.

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John Catsimatidis, CEO of Red Apple Real Estate, said his father-in-law, who came to St. Pete in 1980, urged him to invest in the city for decades. 

"Finally, I got a good deal," Catsimatidis said. "If it's a good deal, I always write a check. I got a good deal, and we bought down here. It’s going to help the restaurants. It’s going to help all of the stores in St. Petersburg."

400 Central is one of several projects in downtown St. Pete. Cranes also fill the city’s skyline.

"I count them as a come in from the interstate from South St. Pete. This building, the Art House, there are so many that are going to be contributing to our economy and contributing to our property tax rolls, class-A office space, retail to the heart of downtown, and it’s going to be a great compliment to what we’ll see with the Historic Gas Plant just west of here," Welch said.

As more people move to St. Pete, though, it has residents asking if the infrastructure can keep up, especially, residents say, after the recent flooding from record rain. 

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"Our plan is that all new development handles stormwater and make sure our stormwater system is made whole. The issue that we've had is just record rainfall. We've had more rain in a shorter period of time than we've ever had before," Welch said. "That's just not happening just in St. Pete. It’s happening all over the United States. So, we have to continue to pay attention to our infrastructure, make sure we adapt and mitigate as much as possible, but I would contribute to attribute that to the amount of rainfall that we're getting on a regular basis."

Welch and Kriseman said the growth has been a part of the city’s plans for a while.

"Our growth is happening precisely in the places where we planned for it to happen through our planning organizations, downtown St. Pete, Tyrone, Gateway as activity centers. And so, we can support this kind of density. This kind of density has been planned, and it's going to drive our economy for decades to come," Welch said.

Welch said since the plan for the highest growth is for those activity centers, traditional neighborhoods can remain at low density.

"The city has a road map of what needs to happen in order to be able to continue to grow, continue to face increasingly strong storms that we know are coming with climate change, and so, I think the city is well positioned to be able to continue to grow, but yet address the infrastructure challenges and needs," Kriseman said.

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