Newly built St. Petersburg apartments sell for $54 million

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Hines Co. has sold off Azure, a 308-unit apartment complex in St. Petersburg’s Gateway area, for $54 million.

Passco Companies LLC, based in Irvine, Calif., said Friday it had acquired the property, which wrapped up construction in 2014, for $175,324 per apartment. It is 94 percent occupied, according to Passco.

The complex broke ground in early 2013, after Houston-based Hines paid $6.3 million for the Azure site. It was one of four new developments in the works in the Gateway area planned at the… …read more

EWI Construction founder: ‘Things are moving along at a faster pace’

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Hotels, apartments, restaurants: Tampa-based EWI Construction is seeing a surge of activity across all sectors of commercial real estate. The company is about to begin construction on a 48-unit apartment project in Ballast Point and is working on plans for hotels in downtown Tampa and Ybor City, EWI Founder Casey Ellison told Tampa Bay Business Journal.

Construction seems to picking up — what are you seeing out there? We saw a spike probably nine months ago.

What’s different? Projects come, they… …read more

Husband-and-wife custom homebuilders auctioning off personal estate in Winter Haven with no reserve

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An 11,000-square-foot estate on the auction block in Winter Haven has an in-house movie theater, music room and massage room — but if that’s not enough to keep a potential buyer entertained, the home is a five-minute drive from Legoland Florida.

The husband-and-wife team behind Built By Waters, a custom homebuilding company, will auction off 1700 N. Lake Eloise Drive with no reserve on March 14. The home, built in 2006, was previously listed for sale at $3.75 million and sits on 4.5 acres.

The… …read more

Florida’s economy ranks No. 7 in the U.S.

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Great weather that attracts hordes of tourists, growth in non-farm payrolls, a recovering housing market and a $15 billion state government surplus all played a role in Florida being ranked as the seventh-best economy among the 50 states.

The rankings were compiled by Business Insider, which ranked the states’ economies on six measures: recent change in housing prices, non-farm payroll job growth, unemployment rate, GDP per capita, average weekly wage, and state government surplus and deficit.

Business… …read more

$70M apartments to break ground in downtown St. Petersburg

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St. Petersburg’s next high-end apartment development is imminent.

Coral Gables-based Allen Morris Co. will break ground on the Hermitage, a 348-unit apartment building at 750 First Ave., on Wednesday. The Hermitage will include studio, one- and two-bedroom units. The building will stand eight stories and feature a rooftop pool.

The $70 million project is backed by AIG Global Real Estate, Allen Morris said in a statement. When it was announced in April 2014, construction costs were pegged at $65… …read more

Exclusive: New apartment development planned in Ballast Point

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EWI Construction is building a 48-unit apartment complex at the intersection of Paxton and Macdill avenues in the Ballast Point area.

The site was once slated for a townhouse development that never came to fruition, said Casey Ellison, EWI Construction founder.

ABC Capital is the developer of the project, Ellison said, and he anticipates construction beginning this week and wrapping up by the end of the year. He declined to disclose construction costs.

One-bedroom units will be around 650 square… …read more

5 things to start the day: Voting on the Pier, and what can Ringo open with his key to Sarasota?

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The city of St. Petersburg is conducting a public survey on seven designs for the Pier on the waterfront. The Pier has been an attraction for downtown, previously housing retail, restaurants and gatherings. Surveying lasts until Friday.

Tampa landed on BuzzFeed’s list of ” 9 places to move if you want Wall Street as your landlord,” using data from Keefe Bruyette & Woods. Manatee, Pasco and Polk counties also rank among the 25 counties where private equity firms, hedge funds and real estate investment… …read more

Behind the financial fraud headlines, victims tell their story

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Years before Leigh Farrington Fiske of Tampa pled guilty to defrauding small business owners, Dominick and Michelle Alesandrini say they lost $18,000 in their dealings with Fiske.

In 2005, the couple signed a lease-purchase contract with Fiske for a home in Seminole Heights, and Dominick Alesandrini, a contractor, agreed to restore and renovate parts of the house that had been damaged in a fire, with the provision that the materials he bought and the value of his labor would be applied to the purchase… …read more

Pending home sales at highest level since 2013

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January may have been a weak month for home sales, but it was a strong month for contract signings.

Pending home sales jumped to their highest level since August 2013, according to the National Association of Realtors. The group’s Pending Home Sales Index, which is based on contract signings, rose from 102.5 in December to 104.2 in January. That’s well above January 2014’s 96.1 level.

“Contract activity is convincingly up compared to a year ago despite comparable inventory levels,” said NAR Chief… …read more

Boutique hotel with rooftop bar planned on former Crawdaddy’s site on Rocky Point

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A boutique hotel is in the works for the site of a shuttered restaurant on the Rocky Point waterfront.

Tampa-based Lifsey Real Estate Holdings is partnering with Pinnacle Hotel Management, based near West Palm Beach, on a nine-story, 180-room boutique hotel, said Stan Lifsey, principal.

The project will be built on the site of the former Crawdaddy’s Restaurant, which is now used for overflow parking for events at the Rusty Pelican. Pending city approval of a rezoning request, construction could… …read more