Water Street Tampa's next act will include condos, office space and entertainment concepts
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Apr 29, 2024

Water Street Tampa’s second phase will look quite different from its first.

Water Street developer Strategic Property Partners on Monday revealed plans for the district’s second phase, which has been in the works for several years. Conceptual plans for three buildings were unveiled Monday: a condo tower; office space that will be custom-built for a major tenant; and a mixed-use space for a hotel and entertainment concepts including a “live performance venue.”

SPP did not reveal details of the buildings, such as square footage, height or number of units. The condo tower, SPP said, will be Water Street’s tallest building — in other words, over 26 stories, the height of apartment tower Heron and the Tampa Edition.

The buildings won’t go vertical before spring 2025 when infrastructure work is complete, SPP said.

The office and condo buildings will be built north of the 900 and 1000 blocks of East Cumberland Avenue. The entertainment venue will be built across Channelside Drive from Amalie Arena and include a “select service hotel, an event parking garage and a variety of entertainment-oriented uses,” SPP said.

In contrast, when SPP revealed conceptual plans for Water Street’s first phase in 2017, plans included three apartment towers, the Tampa Edition and the JW Marriott, the University of South Florida’s Morsani College of Medicine and office tower Thousand and One. The district’s first phase was completed in 2023.

SPP is controlled by Kirkland, Washington-based Cascade Investment LLC, the investment fund of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. Tampa Bay Lightning owner Jeff Vinik sold his controlling share of SPP to Cascade in mid-2023.

“From the inception of Water Street Tampa, we aspired to create a superior corporate relocation opportunity,” SPP CEO Josh Taube said in a statement. “We are successfully delivering on our vision of Water Street Tampa and believe its unique neighborhood energy, vibrancy and amenities will become an unparalleled location attracting best-in-class companies and talent to the West Coast of Florida. We are also well-positioned to partner with local and state leadership to capitalize on the immense draw of national businesses to Florida, and we plan to vigorously pursue corporate relocations to this site.”

Here’s a look at each building unveiled Monday.

Build-to-suit office space: In a major departure from Water Street’s first phase, SPP won’t build office space speculatively this time around — Thousand and One broke ground without any tenants in place in 2019. Instead, Monday’s announcement is essentially a pitch to companies that may be looking for large blocks of contiguous office space in a mixed-use environment like Water Street’s.

Kohn Pedersen Fox completed the tower’s conceptual design, SPP said.

Conceptual renderings released Monday show an office tower similar in size and scale to Thousand and One, which is 375,000 square feet. SPP officials did not specify how much of the new building would have to be pre-leased before beginning construction.

A corporate relocation deal remains Water Street’s white whale. Despite early promises of convincing out-of-market companies to move to Tampa, the vast majority of Thousand and One has been leased to local companies. (Downtown office tower 100 North Tampa, which is now on the market, lost three tenants to Thousand and One.)

Cybersecurity firm ReliaQuest, which has signage on Thousand and One and is the tower’s largest tenant, moved employees to Water Street from offices throughout Tampa.

In 2014, when revealing the earliest plans for what would become Water Street, former Lightning CEO Tod Leiweke told reporters that his team was working to lure a headquarters relocation to Tampa. Shortly after, Vinik and former Mayor Bob Buckhorn began a series of national media appearances to pitch Tampa and the forthcoming district.

Just two years later, former SPP CEO James Nozar told reporters that the developer expected to announce an anchor office tenant by year’s end. In early 2016, Water Street was rumored to be in the running for a 1 million-square-foot office campus for Citigroup Inc. By year’s end, Citi had purchased suburban office space, ending speculation that it would relocate to Water Street.

With phase one complete and Water Street’s sidewalks brimming with residents, office workers and tourists, SPP can make a much different pitch to potential office tenants than the development teams that worked on the project in the mid-2010s. Today’s iteration of SPP has a real-life example of its success and ability to develop office space. The retailers, restaurants and hotel rooms that make up Water Street’s amenity package already exist.

But the modern-day office market is contending with hybrid and remote work, a trend accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Companies are seeking less space, which enables them to pay higher rents and move to glitzy projects like Water Street. But anchor tenants who need more than 50,000 to 100,000 square feet are few and far between in most major U.S. metros. Most companies that have entered the Tampa market since the pandemic have started out in a coworking space before committing to a permanent home.

“The pandemic has had a profound effect on how companies announce their relocation into a market,” Craig Richard, CEO of the Tampa Bay Economic Development Council, told the Tampa Bay Business Journal in 2022. “Because they don’t know how many workers they’ll have in any one location, they’ll opt to go into a coworking space first.”

Condos: With plans for a new condo tower in the works, SPP is broadening the opportunity to own residential real estate within Water Street. The majority of Water Street’s multifamily real estate is rentals, save for the 38 ultra-luxe condos that sit atop the Tampa Edition. Like the CEOs considering office space in phase two, prospective condo buyers can easily see what they’re purchasing now that the first phase is complete.

Gensler is the design architect and Nichols Architects is the architect of record for the condo tower, SPP said.

Entertainment venue: Across Channelside Drive from Amalie Arena — and across South Jefferson Street from Yard House — SPP envisions a mixed-use, entertainment-geared development that will include a hotel, entertainment uses and a parking garage.

“We look forward to capitalizing on the energy and draw of Amalie Arena while creating a preeminent retail and entertainment destination for the Tampa region,” Taube said in a statement. “This dynamic project, complete with new restaurants, retail, live performance venue and a hotel, will build on the vibrant atmosphere at Amalie Arena by providing a complementary and unique experience.”