Bliss condo tower in downtown St. Pete lands $15.6M construction loan
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Jul 14, 2015

A New Jersey bank has provided the construction loan for Bliss, an 18-story condo tower under construction in downtown St. Petersburg.

Joshua Emory, a Miami-based principal with Primrose Capital LLC, arranged a two-year, $15.6 million construction loan from Valley National Bank for Taub Entities, the developer of the tower.

Bliss broke ground last month - 26 of 29 units were presold, with buyers putting down nonrefundable deposits. The average price in the building is $1 million.

"There was a lot of interest from the lending community for this project given the unblemished track record of the sponsor and significant pre-sale activity," Emory said in a statement. "In the end, Valley National Bank was able to work quickly and deliver a tailored financing solution which was competitively priced and met the needs of the borrower."

Construction is expected to be complete in late 2016. Two other condominiums are expected to break ground in the coming months: The Salvador, a 74-unit building near the Dali Museum, and One, a 41-story, 253-unit tower.