More than 2,000 apartments planned for St. Pete’s Skyway Marina District
By Breanne Williams
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: May 25, 2023

Coral Gables-based Altis Cardinal has submitted plans to redevelop an office campus in St. Petersburg’s Skyway Marina District into a mixed-use development with more than 2,000 apartments.

The plans show Altis Cardinal intends to transform the 34-acre Ceridian Office Park, located at 3102 24th St. S, into Skyway Village. The project will be phased and include a maximum of 2,084 apartments, 119,160 square feet of self-storage space and 49,000 square feet of commercial space. The apartments will be in six buildings, each five stories, with parking garages. The project will have a total of 3,572 parking spaces.

“Right now, this is a mostly empty office park and we think it’s one of the corners of St. Pete that is really experiencing a renewed interest,” Frank Guerra, principal of Altis Cardinal, told the Business Journal. “Downtown is what it is; Central Avenue is what it is. This is a lower cost alternative to that.”

Altis Cardinal purchased the office park in December 2021 for $40 million in an all-cash deal. With the redevelopment, Guerra said he hopes the property will have an urban feel that meshes with the character of the surrounding neighborhood.

A 23,500-square-foot national grocer is anticipated to anchor the development and Guerra said the developer wants to bring in restaurants, boutiques, coffee shops, wine bars and other retail that matches the character of the surrounding community. The retail will be along a central spine of the project.

The plans show the group intends to add two streets and two avenues to the site, along with on-street parking. Guerra said the property would be “self-sufficient” and offer residents retail and commercial options they typically would have to drive to.

The residential units will be a mix of studios, and one-two-and-three bedrooms, with a strong focus on one-and-two-bedroom products. Recreational trails will be built on the northeast and west side of the site.

They will be retaining the Ceridian office tower and Guerra said they will convert it into a one-of-a-kind amenity tower for residents. The tower will have ocean views and will feature themed floors like a floor for coworking and office space, a floor for pet services, two floors for fitness, and a Sky Lounge. In total, there will be 56,959 square feet of amenities in the tower.

The group is also repurposing another building on the campus as a self-storage facility. The remaining buildings will be demolished to make way for the new project.

The team also includes WDG Architecture for design and Stantec as the civil engineer.

Getting ahead of the development curve

Guerra said Altis Cardinal specializes in developing in a neighborhood before it becomes popular to “ride it up,” as is evidenced with Elements on Third — a 10-acre, 431-unit campus in St. Petersburg’s Union Central District — and projects in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Jacksonville. Altis Cardinal began Elements on Third in 2012 and sold it in 2021 for $125 million.

Guerra said it's becoming “increasingly difficult” to find land the size of the 34-acre office complex in St. Pete. Over the years the city has largely been split into many small parcels. Finding space requires either assembling multiple smaller properties or repurposing an existing use like an outdated office or retail site.

“We think the middle market is underserved; there’s just not enough offered for the middle market and so with Elements, we were focused on hitting that tenant,” Guerra said.

According to the proposal, the group intends to pursue a density bonus under a Florida Statute called the Graywater Statute. This allows “a 35% density and intensity bonus if a proposed or an existing development will have a graywater system installed for 100% of the residential dwelling units.”

Graywater is defined as waste from laundry, sinks and showers. Those waters are reused via the graywater system for irrigation and cooling devices.