Channel district development on TECO site: Big potential, big challenges

The massive mixed-use development proposed between the Channel district and Ybor City has enormous potential to transform the entire urban core.

If the development comes to fruition as proposed by Phillips Development & Realty, it would bring thousands of residents and a grocery store to what’s currently a desolate industrial site. It’s adjacent to the most viable potential site for a Major League Baseball stadium in Tampa, the Tampa Park Plaza affordable housing development.

If both a stadium… …read more

29-story towers, grocery, retail in the works for TECO site near Channel district

Phillips Development & Realty is planning a massive mixed-use development named Gas Worx on the TECO Peoples Gas site between Ybor City and the Channel district.

The developer has filed additional plans with the city that show two 29-story residential towers with a total 1,432 units. A third proposed building on the 7.64-acre site would be 53,000 square feet — 40,301 for a grocery store and 13,360 square feet of additional retail space.

The majority of the units, 774, have one bedroom. There… …read more

Condos or apartments? Here’s what will determine the future of one Channel district tower

The sale of more than 200 residences in The Slade will be a bellwether of downtown Tampa’s residential real estate market.

HFF LP is marketing 214 of The Slade’s 294 units for sale for Miami Beach-based Crescent Heights, which bought the units out of foreclosure nearly four years ago.

The Slade — which is at the intersection of North Meridian Avenue and East Washington Street — is a fractured condominium because the majority of the building’s units are operated as apartments, owned by Crescent… …read more

Boston Calling, Tampa Bay should answer

I apologize, dear Tampa Bay, for not staying local my first Memorial Day weekend as a Tampa resident. I didn’t enter your stores. I didn’t dine in your restaurants. My money went to Boston.

Granted, this weekend you did not have the Boston Calling music festival. Beck, St. Vincent and Run the Jewels played. Could you blame me?

I did think of you during seamless (albeit screechy) public transit rides, spending money in different neighborhoods. The sidewalks cracked with age, but enough of them… …read more

Pending home sales hit highest level since 2006

Pending home sales hit their highest level in nine years in April, a sign that last month’s sales decline for existing homes may be only temporary.

The National Association of Realtors’ Pending Home Sales Index, which is based on contract signings, jumped to 112.4 in April, rising for the fourth consecutive month. That’s its highest level since May 2006. All four regions of the country saw more contract signings in April, led by the Northeast and Midwest.

“Realtors are saying foot traffic… …read more

First Watch acquires Colorado-based breakfast chain

First Watch is still hungry.

The Bradenton-based breakfast/lunch/brunch chain has acquired The Egg & I chain of 114 units, which also specialize in breakfast.

Terms were not disclosed.

The Egg & I, founded in Colorado in 1987, is the latest in a buying spree by First Watch. In 2014, the chain, majority-owned by the private equity firm Freeman Spogli, acquired 20 restaurants in Arizona called The Good Egg, as well as two Bread and Company units in Nashville, Tennessee.

The haul brings First Watch’s… …read more

$45M Westshore apartments to break ground Thursday (Rendering)

A North Carolina developer will celebrate the construction of a luxury apartment community in Tampa’s Westshore business district on Thursday.

Crescent Communities, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, will hold a groundbreaking ceremony for Crescent Westshore at 5 p.m. on Thursday.

The 374-apartment complex will be built at the intersection of West Boy Scout Boulevard and Lois Avenue, near International Plaza. In January, Crescent divided the site and sold a portion of the land to Orlando-based… …read more

EPA finalizes ‘waters’ rule; businesses say it will lead to more land use regulation

The Environmental Protection issued final regulations defining what bodies of water would be subject to Clean Water Act permitting requirements, upsetting business groups that contend the rule will expand federal control over how land is used.

The EPA contends the Clean Water Rule simply provides more precise definitions are what types of waters are subject to federal regulation. This should streamline Clean Water Act permitting, it contends.

“For the water in the rivers and lakes in our communities… …read more

New apartment development planned near West Shore and Gandy

A Tampa developer is planning a new apartment community just south of Gandy Boulevard.

ABC Capital Corp. is asking the city to rezone a 2.8-acre parcel of land at 5320 South West Shore Boulevard, where West Tyson and West Pearl avenues intersect with the boulevard. The site is about a quarter mile south of the intersection of West Shore and Gandy boulevards.

The plans are for 188 apartments, 20 of which will be efficiency units, said John Grandoff, a partner with Hill Ward Henderson in Tampa. Grandoff… …read more

New home sales jump in April, as do prices; is it time to build?

Good news for home builders and maybe for the economy as a whole: Sales of new homes increased nearly 7 percent in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 517,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

That’s still a below-average rate historically, but it’s up 26 percent compared with April 2014. Plus, home builders were relieved that sales bounced back in April after slumping in March.

“Today’s numbers are consistent with other data we’ve seen recently and indicate a continuing,… …read more