Boston construction company to open Tampa office in Channelside Bay Plaza
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Mar 30, 2017

A Boston construction company with a large Florida presence is opening a small office in one of Tampa's most closely watched properties.

Strategic Property Partners said Thursday that Suffolk Construction will take 4,500 square feet in Channelside Bay Plaza, the beleaguered waterfront mall in downtown Tampa's Channel district. SPP, the real estate holding company controlled by Tampa Bay Lightning owner Jeff Vinik and Cascade Investment LLC, holds the ground lease to the mall.

More than 20 employees will work from the Channelside office, according to a news release from SPP. Suffolk also has Florida offices in West Palm Beach, Estero and Miami.

SPP's offices are also in the plaza, though the developer recently revealed it will move to the former District 3 events venue in 2018. The Tampa Bay WaVE, a nonprofit incubator for tech startups, opened a second location in the plaza in early 2017.

The redevelopment of Channelside Bay Plaza is a key component of SPP's plans to build a $3 billion, mixed-use district in downtown Tampa. An initial vision plan for the redevelopment includes a waterfront park, office and retail space on the water, with residential towers along Channelside Drive.

Those preliminary plans were presented to the Port Tampa Bay board in September, as the port owns the dirt beneath the plaza. That presentation marked the beginning of negotiations between SPP and the port on redevelopment. The port board was expected to vote on a final proposal in early 2017.

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