Just a year after a Pinellas County waterfront apartment complex suffered the double wallop of consecutive hurricanes, the owner plans to rebuild the property — with the hope of bringing back some previous tenants.
The community is Seaside Villas, a three-story, 121-unit property first built in 1964. It is at 3209 58th St. S. and sits right on Boca Ciega Bay, which connects to the gulf.
The community is in Gulfport, an artsy enclave near the Gulf Coast beaches that singer-songwriter John Prine once called home.
Gulfport suffered heavy flooding when Hurricane Helene struck the area Sept. 26, 2024, leaving massive damage along the commercial district and its neighborhoods. According to a city website, about 600 properties were affected by the flooding.
At Seaside Villas, the damage was so severe residents of the first floor were forced to move out.
Eric Schifferli
Courtesy image
Eric Schifferli, owner of the Delray Beach company that owns Seaside Villas, says in the immediate aftermath of Helene the hope was to fix the damage without disturbing the residents on the top two floors. However, the electrical panels were on the ground floor and couldn’t be quickly repaired.
And if that wasn’t enough, just nine days after Helene, Hurricane Milton blew through. What the water had spared, the wind further damaged.
“Sadly, we had to move everybody out, which was difficult on the residents,” Schifferli says. “But it was difficult on us too, to have an empty building.”
Halfway there
Once the storms had passed, the plan was to restore Seaside Villas, but the company ran up against FEMA’s 50% rule.
Gulfport says that to be in compliance with the National Flood Insurance Program, damaged properties — defined as those with damage equal to or exceeding 50% of the structure’s pre-damage market value — must meet current floodplain management regulations.
“This may include elevating the structure, relocating it, demolishing it, or implementing other approved mitigation measures,” the city of Gulfport says.
The city deemed the 61-year-old Seaside Villas to be one of those structures.
Schifferli says the assessment was probably correct. “Rather than fight it — my background is in apartment development and I’ve been doing it for a lot of years — we decided that we might have to rebuild it since we would really be unable to meet FEMA’s requirements for a restoration.”
The plan calls for a five-story building with 121 units to replace the existing structure. The community will include one-, two- and three-bedroom units and with ground floor parking to protect against future flooding.
Schifferli declined to disclose the cost of the project, saying they are “still working through insurance things…luckily, we can move forward without it all being resolved. But it certainly slowed things down.”
Hurricane Helene damaged Gulfport, the quaint Pinellas County town.
Photo by Mark Wemple
The units will be facing the water and there will be a waterfront infinity pool along with a rooftop amenity deck. And because the new building will meet updated Florida Code standards, it will be more resilient.
While it is still early in the process and there is work still needed to be done with the city, Schifferli and his team are working with architects and civil engineers to make sure it meets resiliency requirements and a site plan meets approval.
Some initial plans have been submitted to the Southwest Florida Water Management District as required and if all goes well construction can start late next spring, with the initial units coming online by the summer of 2027.
Attention grabber
Schifferli bought Seaside Villas in 2018 through a family-owned business it named Seaside Villas Florida. It paid $20 million, according to Pinellas property records. (The family business develops, owns and manages apartment properties mostly through separate entities.)
The family came to own Seaside Villas for the same reason so many end up falling for Gulfport.
Kristen Winecka, Schifferli’s daughter, found the community when working on a project for a previous apartment the company had sold. Schifferli and his wife, Jill, drove up shortly thereafter to see it as they considered the purchase.
“You know, the waterfront setting, the next-door park and beach. And then charming downtown Gulfport with all its restaurants, shops etc. just caught our attention right away,” he says. “And we said, ‘Okay, we want to buy this.’”
The family liked it so much Winecka and her husband Jaden moved in and managed the property at the start. While living back in Delray Beach now, they still are the asset managers.
That’s important to note, because Schifferli stresses the family has a deep bond with the apartment community and Gulfport. And that bond has informed much of what’s happened in the time since the hurricanes — including the family staying in touch with previous residents with the hopes that some will return.
It also includes foregoing a high dollar luxury community as is happening at many waterfront properties along the Gulf Coast.
The units will be nice, he says “but we’re not trying to get some premium by saying this is the equivalent of some, you know, oceanfront condo or something like that. That’s not our intent at all. They will be good apartments and waterfront apartments but the goal for the community is not be too far out of line.”
That doesn’t mean it will be inexpensive to live at Seaside Villas, either.
These are after all waterfront apartments in Florida. And those come at a premium, regardless of how much the owner likes the neighborhood.