Revised plan approved for apartment tower on Mirror Lake in downtown St. Pete
/A rendering of a previously planned 21-story apartment tower, which is now approved for 23 stories | gravel road partners
A planned apartment tower on the southwest edge of downtown St. Pete’s Mirror Lake neighborhood has been approved for increased height and additional units.
The initial plan, which was approved by the Development Review Commission in January 2023, called for a 21-story 200-unit apartment tower with 10,843 square feet of retail space and a 264-space parking garage at 699 1st Avenue North.
The new proposal is for a 23-story, 218-unit apartment tower with 11,193 square feet of retail space and a 274-space parking garage.
The properties, which Gravel Road Partners purchased in March 2022 for $6.4 million, include the parcels at 685, 694, and 699 1st Avenue North and are currently occupied by two vacant office buildings, a vacant triplex, and a surface parking lot.
The proposed apartment tower has added a property aT 669 1ST AVENUE NORTH to its site plan | google earth
In order to achieve a higher density, an adjacent property at 669 1st Avenue North was added to the proposed tower’s site plan. The newly added property, which is home to a 4,960-square-foot office building, will not be redeveloped.
“As we got to know our neighbor, there was an opportunity to capitalize on additional density that they don’t have plans to use and, given the nature of our site, was more valuable to us than him,” said Michael Burke, Founding Partner at Gravel Road Partners, in a conversation with St. Pete Rising.
Despite the approved redesign, Burke says construction on the tower is on hold due to current economic conditions. However, Burke remains bullish on the area.
“The Tampa region, and St. Pete in particular, has recovered faster than any other market in the southeast,” he says. “There is still a scarcity of land and population growth, and we don't think there's a more attractive downtown than St Pete for the long haul.”
The tower's design remains unchanged, aiming to enhance ground-floor activity while expanding open space and improving pedestrian access | gravel road partners
Gravel Road Partners will either develop the property at a later date or sell the land.
“Due to Mirror Lake’s recent designation as a local historic district, high rise development in the neighborhood is going to be much more difficult,” says Burke. “But we love this project because it offers the best of both words, being a block off Central Avenue, and still having the ability to walk outside to walk your dog or have a cup of coffee around the around the lake. It's just a great blend of urban and tranquility.”
The development site is zoned Downtown Center-1 (DC-1), which allows for a base FAR of 3.0 and a maximum FAR of 7.0 under the streamlined approval process. While the original plan was designed with a 7.0 FAR, the new site plan decreases the FAR to 6.1.
The tower's design remains unchanged, aiming to enhance ground-floor activity while expanding open space and improving pedestrian access to address concerns from neighbors, particularly the Unitarian Universalist Church of St. Petersburg.
The design includes a public plaza featuring art installations and a shaded area, which would also help reduce the building's perceived mass at ground level.
The development team consists of Hollywood, Florida-based ODP Architects and St. Petersburg-based Booth Design Group as the landscape architect.
This would be Gravel Road’s second project in St. Pete. Last year, the group started construction on the Bayou Court Apartments, a 60-unit affordable housing development in south St. Pete near the southeast corner of Lake Maggiore.
