Best Real Estate Deals: Midtown Tampa is the development of the year
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Dec 17, 2021

Midtown Tampa has added much-needed office and retail space to a very tight market.

The mixed-use development, which sits at Interstate 275 and North Dale Mabry Highway, spans 22 acres and includes apartments, hotel rooms, retail and restaurants and office space. With a dearth of new retail and office space in the Westshore business district, Midtown has opened up opportunities to businesses that wanted to be in Westshore but had nowhere to go — and it’s brought some big names along for the ride.

Midtown has landed the first Shake Shack and REI Co-op in Tampa, and it will also be home to chef Chris Ponte’s Ponte Tampa. Ponte Tampa is the chef’s updated take on Cafe Ponte, a longtime cult favorite in Largo that closed in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Key players

Master developer: Bromley Companies, Nicholas Haines

Co-sub developers: Highwoods Properties Dan Woodward, Prudential, Jim Mehalso, Crescent Communities: Jay Curran, Concord Hospitality: Carl Hren, CASTO: Brett Hutchens, Jeffrey R. Anderson Real Estate: JR Anderson

Architecture: WDG Architecture, Vincent Hunter; TVS, Rob O’Keefe

Engineering: Stantec, LandDesign and Lincks & Associates

General contractor: Barr & Barr, Fred Hames, Finfrock: Grayson Smith

Attorneys: Foley & Lardner, Johnson Pope Bokor Ruppel & Burns

Lenders: Valley National Bank, Al Rogers, Trey Korhn, TD Bank, Sean Dunne, Santander, John Gunther-Mohr, Fifth Third Bank, Scott C. Gerlach

Big numbers

$500 million: Cost of the 23-acre mixed-use development, featuring four real estate asset classes – office, retail, hotel and residential – delivered together.

1.8 million: Total square footage of Midtown Tampa

600,000: The amount of office square footage Bromley has rights to develop in a future phase

Big challenge

With declining retail demand in the pandemic, leasing was challenging, the honorees said. “As a testament to the appeal of the development,” the velocity of the retail tenants curated resulted in 95 percent occupancy, Bromley said. The firm set a target deadline of the Super Bowl 2021 date that “seemed nearly impossible.”