TradeWinds’ St. Pete Beach expansion vote postponed after nearly nine-hour hearing
By Breanne Williams
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Apr 16, 2024

St. Pete Beach officials have pushed a vote on the expansion plan for the 25-acre TradeWinds Island Resorts until April 23.

If approved, the expansion will bring a net addition of 629 rooms in three towers; plans include demolishing and rebuilding 21 existing rooms. The developer, South Florida-based 1754 Properties, said it intends to build the project over four phases, which could take up to 20 years to complete. The timeline allows the new rooms to be absorbed into the market before they launch the next phase of development.

The meeting began at 4 p.m. on Monday and featured hours of presentations, questions from commissioners and public comment. The commission will enter deliberation next week at the 6 p.m. meeting.

This is the second major resort redevelopment coming before city commission this year. In February, commissioners voted to approve the expansion of the Sirata Beach Resort, which will add more than 400 rooms to the site. That vote was also delayed one week following a more than 10-hour initial public hearing.

The TradeWinds project will feature new parking garages, conference and meeting spaces, office space, retail and restaurant spaces. Amenities include a kid’s center and three swimming pools. There will also be three new beach access points on the site.

At completion, the resort will have 1,596 rooms and 170,126 square feet of accessory space, including retail and restaurant. There will be a public rooftop terrace with a glass-floor balcony, which the developer said will be the first of its kind in Pinellas County.

The team intends to build an internal roadway on the site to move traffic off of Gulf Boulevard via four access points and onto the property. The expansion will also feature improvements to Gulf Boulevard and stormwater management.

The development team includes Nunzio Marc DeSantis Architects, Perry-Becker Landscape Architects, Harris Civil Engineering and Stearns Weaver Miller.