Charlotte developer, still bullish on Tampa, plans upscale apartments on Westshore waterfront
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Oct 27, 2020

A Charlotte developer that's sold off some of the most expensive apartments in Tampa history is targeting a waterfront site in the Westshore business district.

Crescent Communities is planning a 290-unit, nine-story apartment building in Bay Center, an office park owned by Highwoods Properties. In 2018, Highwoods sought city approvals to make way for an expansion of the office park.

The plans require a rezoning approval from the city of Tampa, which will hold a public hearing on the proposal on Feb. 11, 2021.

Novel Bay Center is in line with Crescent's other landmark deals in the Tampa market — Novel Riverwalk, now known as Anchor Riverwalk, and Crescent Bayshore, now known as 2Bayshore. But in late 2019, Crescent senior managing director Jay Curran said the developer was moving away from high-end, urban developments and pursuing garden-style apartments in the suburbs.

Crescent is still actively looking for suburban sites in the Tampa Bay region, said Tim Graff, Florida managing director at Crescent. But the Bay Center property was too unique to pass up, with its waterfront location and proximity to both Beach Park and the employment base in Westshore. Crescent, Graff said, remains bullish on Tampa even in the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic. Both its Bayshore and Riverwalk apartment properties sold for top-of-market pricing. When Crescent Bayshore sold for $111.5 million — just over $300,000 per apartment — in 2014, it was the highest price ever paid for a market-rate multifamily rental community in Tampa. That record has since been trounced (a Harbour Island apartment tower fetched more than $440,000 per unit in 2019). The Riverwalk property topped $312,000 per unit when it sold in 2019.

Crescent is also the apartment developer in Midtown Tampa, a mixed-use district under construction at Interstate 275 and North Dale Mabry Highway.

"It has really good fundamentals," Graff said of Tampa. "Orlando has a little bit of a stigma because it’s getting hit right now with some job losses, but there's still a big appetite from institutional capital to be in Tampa. We’ve had great success in Bayshore and with Novel Riverwalk, and we’re really excited about Midtown Tampa. When that comes along, that's going to be a game changer."

At Novel Bay Center, the unit mix is still being finalized, but the average square footage will be larger than usual. Crescent's target demographic is "maturing professionals and empty nesters," Graff said.

The development will have a luxury amenity package, Graff said, with plenty of open-air spaces for socializing, including an indoor-outdoor sky lounge.

"We were kind of going to that before Covid as well," Graff said of outdoor social spaces. "We had more of a health and wellness take on some of the products we’re developing now."