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Here's why St. Pete should embrace the latest downtown apartment tower


Here's why St. Pete should embrace the latest downtown apartment tower

Cue the protests. A developer has proposed another tower for downtown St. Petersburg.

This as-yet-unnamed building is comparatively modest at 21 stories and 245 feet tall. About a quarter mile away, the 400 Central luxury condo will be more than twice its size. Still, any potential tower in any part of downtown draws detractors.

The handwringing is understandable. Little ol' St. Pete has grown up over the last 20 years. The city once had a handful of towers, but now downtown has too many to remember all the names.

City leaders inflamed the anxiety by treating the sewer system like it was always the 187th thing on the to-do list. The system eventually buckled and pumping sewage into Tampa Bay became a gross ritual. The city had shed its reputation as God's waiting room only to risk replacing it as Florida's toilet bowl. Maybe they thought no one would notice?

They noticed. And they haven't forgotten.

So every time a builder proposes a new downtown tower, a cry of "What about all those additional flushing toilets?" rises like William Wallace rallying his Scottish brethren into battle. To its credit, the city has made progress on mending the sewer system, helped in part by the property taxes collected from ... you guessed it ... those new condo and apartment towers.

Sewer angst is often followed by traffic congestion jitters and consternation over how the new tower will undermine what remains of St. Pete's 1950s-era charm. (That downtown was a dead zone through much of the 1980s and 1990s doesn't come up as much.)

In this latest case, the city's charm hardly seems in jeopardy. The 0.69-acre property rests at the terminus of Interstate 175. On one corner, a giant industrial-looking pole supports a traffic light system. For a long time, parts of the sidewalk were chewed up. Thousands of cars rumble by every day.

The property's one-story brick building is old but not officially historic. It houses a kidney dialysis clinic that is only open three days a week. The property is the kind of place where an SUV driver can lose control, demolish the nearby fire hydrant, tear through the building's front doors, and then run away without immediately getting caught. All of that happened in 2017.

The new tower's plan includes 213 apartments with ample car and bike parking. The builder, Stadler Development, also envisions ground-floor retail space and 10-foot sidewalks.

Replacing an often empty building with one that could house hundreds of people is a win for a city with high housing costs. The apartments will rent at market rates, but research indicates that even new market-rate housing can improve affordability for middle and low-income households.

The $67-million tower will strengthen St. Petersburg's tax base, and the new residents will pump money into local small businesses. Building vertically also helps to allay sprawl. The last thing central Florida needs is to replace more orange groves or cattle ranches with another single-family housing tract. More people living in new downtown apartment towers means less need to clear-cut what's left of the state's wilderness.

This tower is a good fit for its area, and the leader of the city's Innovation District, where the property is located, has given the plan her thumbs up. Unless something unusual arises, the city should approve the project.

With change comes anxiety, even some pain. But every city should want people to live in its city center. In downtown St. Pete, building skyward is the best way to do that.

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