St. Pete Beach resort could add 10-story luxury hotel, possible JW flag
By Breanne Williams
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Apr 25, 2023

The Sirata Beach Resort on St. Pete Beach will soon undergo a massive expansion, including adding two new hotels to the property.

Kentucky-based Columbia Sussex, which purchased the 13-acre site in December for $207 million, announced it will also be doing a major renovation to the existing hotel. The Sirata Beach Resort, located at 5300 Gulf Blvd., will lose 57 of the existing rooms during the renovation. Renovations will also upgrade the rooms, replace the pool and move Compass Grille.

According to a site plan presented at community meetings on April 13 and April 20, the expansion will remove the existing northern building on the 13-acre property and replace it with a 290-key luxury hotel with meeting space, ballroom and a parking garage.

The luxury hotel will be 10 stories tall, with a three-story parking garage podium and will also have an elevated pool. The developer is in talks with JW Marriott for the hotel.

The group will also add a 130-key select-service hotel with a parking garage on the southern end that will be geared toward families. The select service hotel is expected to be eight stories tall; no flag has been selected yet. The group still has to go through the conditional use approval process through the city.

Between the renovation and new projects, the Sirata Beach Resort will have a total of 647 rooms. There will be two public beach access spots, one at the southern end of the property and one through the middle of the site starting on Gulf Boulevard.

Columbia Sussex’s acquisition of the Sirata Beach Resort was the most expensive hotel purchase in Pinellas County history. The sale price broke down to approximately $541,884 per key. The company also owns the Hilton Clearwater Beach Resort and Spa and the Marriott Tampa Westshore in Tampa.

The development team also includes Kimley-Horn as the engineer and Pivot Studio as the architect.