St. Pete police HQ redevelopment rebrands as The Central
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Feb 28, 2024

The redevelopment of St. Petersburg's former police headquarters is under construction — and the project has a new name.

The development, previously known as Orange Station, has been rebranded The Central. The Central will include a 15-story Autograph Collection Hotel with 170keys, a 12-story, 125,000-square-foot office tower and 42 workforce housing units. The office tower is the first multitenant office space to break ground in downtown St. Pete in four decades.

The 2.1-acre site in St. Pete's Edge district will also include a 500-space parking garage with 14,000 square feet of street-level retail. A plaza on the property will be home to a monument honoring the Courageous 12, a group of 12 Black St. Pete police officers who filed a discrimination lawsuit in 1965 to gain the same rights and authority as their white counterparts.

Tampa-based Ellison Cos. is the general contractor and a joint venture partner in the development. The development team, known as Edge Central Development Partners, also includes DDA Development, J Square Developers and Backstreets Capital, along with Place Architecture.

“Class A office space is a very broad category,” Casey Ellison, CEO of Ellison Cos., said in a statement. “What we’re going to offer is not only high-end finishes and the latest technology. It will be highly amenitized and driven by the lessons we’ve learned in the hospitality space. It’ll be ideal for employers that are looking to entice their teams to come back to the office.”

The hotel will include a bar and restaurant as well as meeting and conference rooms, event spaces, fitness facilities and a rooftop pool.