Carillon developer shares more details on behemoth plan: 'We're building another city
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Apr 2, 2015

The nearly 3-million-square-foot development Echelon LLC is planning in Carillon Park is designed as a miniature city in the heart of suburban St. Petersburg.

The buildings proposed for on the 16.5-acre site maximize the available land with dense, urban buildings - 20-story office towers and apartment towers atop parking decks with street-level retail. Echelon City Center, as the project is named, will commence this fall with the construction of a 14-story apartment tower near the Publix Super Markets Inc. in Carillon.

The tower, named One Park West, will consist of 198 units and 16,000 square feet of retail space. It will be move-in ready in late 2016 or early 2017. The office towers won't break ground until a company agrees to lease at least 125,000 square feet.

In total, the project will built over five to seven years and cost $600 million to $700 million. At full buildout, it will increase the Carillon population from 15,000 employees and 3,500 residents to 22,000 employees and 7,000 residents. The Tampa Bay Business Journal first reported Echelon's plans on Thursday morning.

In 2012, Echelon pitched the site to the Tampa Bay Rays as a potential stadium site, though the Rays never engaged with the developer.

"It's exactly equidistant from downtown Tampa, downtown St. Pete and downtown Clearwater," said Chris Eastman, chief development office of Echelon. "What we're doing here is, in effect building another city."

Here's how Echelon City Center breaks down:

500,000 square feet of office space

172,000 square feet of retail space

1,500 residential units

120-room boutique hotel, with a flag like Aloft or Indigo

Echelon City Center will also include a park in the middle of the development. The developers are planning 20,000 square feet of retail space between the park and Main Street that will be dedicated to entertainment concepts.

"It's different," Eastman said. "It's a departure from what we've designed and what the balance of Carillon is. It just makes sense that this next phase be something a little more contemporary."

Eastman said the group is projecting rents at the same level downtown Tampa fetches, which are around $2 per square foot, and that he anticipates demand for high-end apartments will continue through 2020. (Other Tampa real estate executives have made similar projections.)

Eastman said the company would still be open to including baseball in the plans, but that the real estate market is now strong enough to support such a behemoth development.

"We hunkered down through the lean times,” he said, "but we're ready to attack this.”

Ashley Gurbal Kritzer is a reporter for the Tampa Bay Business Journal.