ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – People will soon start moving into the tallest residential building on the Gulf Coast of Florida, 400 Central.
The first residents are expected to move into the building in downtown St. Pete this month. City officials recently okayed residents to move into the first 25 floors. Other parts of the building are still under construction.
By the numbers:
It soars above St. Pete’s skyline at 515 feet tall and 46 stories. 400 Central includes 301 condominium homes, including penthouses.
New York-based billionaire developer John Catsimatidis Sr., founder of the Red Apple Group, is behind the building. Wednesday, he gave St. Pete Mayor Ken Welch and other city officials a tour.
“Welcome to the top of the world,” Catsimatidis said. “What a scene. What a beautiful scene. What an iconic building. I feel like we’re on the top of the world in St. Petersburg, and on a clear day you could see forever.”
It boasts several amenities, like a sky lounge with views of Tampa Bay, and a putting green.
What they’re saying:
400 Central is one of several projects in downtown St. Pete. Mayor Welch said the growth has been a part of the city’s plans for a while, and he said the city can support it.
“The density that we’re seeing in St. Petersburg has been playing really for decades,” Mayor Welch said. “We want to have density where we have transportation nodes, where we have jobs. So, you’ve got that three-legged stool of jobs, transportation, and housing in the same place. And for years, downtown St. Pete has been a planned activity center along with Gateway, along with Tyrone. So, the density is happening precisely in the place that the city has planned for decades.”
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“The infrastructure is here to support that. Now what we need to do is to improve our infrastructure, not because of the growth or the density, but because of the age of our infrastructure and the fact that our infrastructure was not built to deal with the kind of threats we’re seeing from increased sea level rise, as we saw with Helene and Milton. So, whether we had these buildings or not, we need to improve our infrastructure so it can withstand the increased threats we’re seeing from climate change and sea level rise. That will happen this year with an ask to the community to approve about a $600 million bond. We’re calling it SPAR, St. Pete Agile Resilience, to help fast track a lot of that infrastructure improvement from plants to neighborhood infrastructure improvement,” Welch said.
Residences at 400 Central start at $1 million. Mayor Welch also talked about the balance between market rate housing and affordable housing.
“Our approach is housing opportunities for all, and that includes this kind of market rate housing. Now, where the city focuses our investment and our subsidies is in affordable and workforce housing. So, we do have that balance so that everything isn’t market rate, but you definitely need the economic push that this kind of development brings, the jobs from office and retail is vitally important,” he said.
Catsimatidis also presented a $15,000 check for holiday gifts to the Police Athletic League and St. Petersburg Police Chief, Anthony Holloway on Wednesday.
Catsimatidis said 400 Central is just the start of the Red Apple Group’s projects in St. Pete. They recently submitted a proposal to redevelop the Historic Gas Plant District, and bought a property in Mirror Lake.
“We have a bunch of architects doing designs and seeing something really nice and iconic, and maybe we’re going to build. There’s such a thing as affordable condos. You never know,” Catsimatidis said.
A crane fell from 400 Central’s construction site during Hurricane Milton last year into an office building. No one was hurt. At the time, Catsimatidis said, “We are grateful that no one was injured in the area, and that the only damage was to bricks and not to people.”
Wednesday, the company said to reach out to Suffolk Construction. At the time this article was published, Fox 13 had not heard back.
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The Source: This article was written with information provided by the Red Apple Group and the City of St. Pete.