St. Petersburg apartments sell for more than $90 million
By Breanne Williams
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Oct 4, 2021

An apartment complex in St. Petersburg’s Echelon City Center has sold in a $90.85 million deal.

California-based A.G. Spanos Cos. sold the building to New York-based Sentinel Real Estate Corp., according to Pinellas County property records. The property, formerly known as the Grove Isle at Echelon City Center, is the first phase of the Echelon City Center Development.

The 298-unit, five-story apartment complex has been renamed Axio at Carillon. Regions Bank provided a $50 million mortgage for the acquisition, according to property records. It opened this year on 2.57 acres and has two courtyards with pools, a fitness center, a golf simulator and a six-level parking garage. It is directly across the street from where the Topgolf is slated to break ground within Echelon City Center, a mixed-use district that spans 20.5 acres.

The purchase price breaks down to $303,959 per apartment. Few apartment properties in the Tampa Bay region have sold for more than $300,000 per unit, though that level of pricing is becoming more common here. An apartment complex in downtown Tampa sold for more than $398,000 per unit in August, the same month a downtown St. Petersburg apartment tower sold for $406,666 per apartment.

Sentinel Real Estate Corp., which closed on Axio at Carillon on Sept. 28, has been investing in multifamily developments for more than 50 years and currently owns more than 25,000 apartment units.

Sentinel previously purchased a variety of properties in Tampa Bay including a 115,000 square-foot office building in Tampa known as Preserve VII and Egret’s Landing Apartments in Palm Harbor, which includes 228 units. In Florida, it also owns apartments in Brandon, Wesley Chapel, Orlando, Sarasota, Jacksonville, Miami and Naples.