smiley
January 28th, 2007, 05:38 PM
Offices downtown would fill a need
A 27-story building is expected to rise in an area that has an office vacancy rate of well under 10 percent.
By PAUL SWIDER
Published January 28, 2007
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A prominent and underused downtown corner is slated to become home to a major new office building if the city approves plans for the southeast corner of Fourth Street and First Avenue S.
The plan is for a 27-story building that would provide 209,000 square feet of office space on top of a 380-space parking garage. If developers can get approval from the Federal Aviation Administration for the 385-foot structure, the site plan will go before the city's Environmental Development Commission in March.
"The market is soft for residential but is renewed strong for office," said Steve Anderson, part of a trio that once planned a 16-story office-residential complex on the site. "It makes sense to go all office now."
The office space would be leased but also sold as office condos, Anderson said. With the downtown office vacancy tight, city officials are welcoming the plan.
"We're overdue for some significant additional office space," said Dave Goodwin, the city's director of economic development. "We think it's time."
Goodwin said his office gets queries from companies looking for large blocks of office space but can't always help because there are so few empty spaces.
The office vacancy rate downtown is well under 10 percent, Goodwin said, which is among the lowest in the country for urban cores.
The recently completed 16-story Progress Energy building at First Avenue N and Third Street adds about 200,000 square feet of office space to the downtown inventory of about 2.5-million, but mostly for that company's own uses. When Progress moves into its new building and vacates its current space at Central Avenue and Second Street S, that 130,000 square feet will become available, but the city is hoping that much of that space will be devoted to upscale retail space since it was originally designed for that.
Conceptual plans call for the new building to have nine floors of parking and 18 floors of office space that would step back and have a shiny green skin on a steel framework, Anderson said.
Part of the new building's garage will overhang the alley on the south of the property line.
The plan is filed under the city's existing land development regulations, Anderson said, but adopts some of the goals of the new rules, like stepping back from the street. Those rules likely won't go into effect until the end of April.
The new building would be a foot shorter than the Bank of America building down the street and several feet shorter than Signature Place, a mixed-use complex rising farther east at Second Street S.
The aim is to have the building certified as "green" by the U.S. Green Building Council, Anderson said. The building will front the sidewalk along First Avenue but will be set off Fourth Street to allow green space to match that across the street at the headquarters of the St. Petersburg Times, Anderson said.
If all goes according to plan, the building could be finished by the end of 2008, Anderson said.
It would displace a vacant copy shop and empty bank drive-through. Anderson said he tried to buy the adjacent Masonic Lodge to the south and a coffee shop to the east but couldn't come to agreement with those owners.
Paul Swider can be reached at 892-2271 or pswider@sptimes.com or by participating in itsyourtimes.com.
[Last modified January 27, 2007, 21:41:01]
http://www.sptimes.com/2007/01/28/Neighborhoodtimes/Offices_downtown_woul.shtml
A 27-story building is expected to rise in an area that has an office vacancy rate of well under 10 percent.
By PAUL SWIDER
Published January 28, 2007
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ADVERTISEMENT
A prominent and underused downtown corner is slated to become home to a major new office building if the city approves plans for the southeast corner of Fourth Street and First Avenue S.
The plan is for a 27-story building that would provide 209,000 square feet of office space on top of a 380-space parking garage. If developers can get approval from the Federal Aviation Administration for the 385-foot structure, the site plan will go before the city's Environmental Development Commission in March.
"The market is soft for residential but is renewed strong for office," said Steve Anderson, part of a trio that once planned a 16-story office-residential complex on the site. "It makes sense to go all office now."
The office space would be leased but also sold as office condos, Anderson said. With the downtown office vacancy tight, city officials are welcoming the plan.
"We're overdue for some significant additional office space," said Dave Goodwin, the city's director of economic development. "We think it's time."
Goodwin said his office gets queries from companies looking for large blocks of office space but can't always help because there are so few empty spaces.
The office vacancy rate downtown is well under 10 percent, Goodwin said, which is among the lowest in the country for urban cores.
The recently completed 16-story Progress Energy building at First Avenue N and Third Street adds about 200,000 square feet of office space to the downtown inventory of about 2.5-million, but mostly for that company's own uses. When Progress moves into its new building and vacates its current space at Central Avenue and Second Street S, that 130,000 square feet will become available, but the city is hoping that much of that space will be devoted to upscale retail space since it was originally designed for that.
Conceptual plans call for the new building to have nine floors of parking and 18 floors of office space that would step back and have a shiny green skin on a steel framework, Anderson said.
Part of the new building's garage will overhang the alley on the south of the property line.
The plan is filed under the city's existing land development regulations, Anderson said, but adopts some of the goals of the new rules, like stepping back from the street. Those rules likely won't go into effect until the end of April.
The new building would be a foot shorter than the Bank of America building down the street and several feet shorter than Signature Place, a mixed-use complex rising farther east at Second Street S.
The aim is to have the building certified as "green" by the U.S. Green Building Council, Anderson said. The building will front the sidewalk along First Avenue but will be set off Fourth Street to allow green space to match that across the street at the headquarters of the St. Petersburg Times, Anderson said.
If all goes according to plan, the building could be finished by the end of 2008, Anderson said.
It would displace a vacant copy shop and empty bank drive-through. Anderson said he tried to buy the adjacent Masonic Lodge to the south and a coffee shop to the east but couldn't come to agreement with those owners.
Paul Swider can be reached at 892-2271 or pswider@sptimes.com or by participating in itsyourtimes.com.
[Last modified January 27, 2007, 21:41:01]
http://www.sptimes.com/2007/01/28/Neighborhoodtimes/Offices_downtown_woul.shtml