{"id":135256,"date":"2026-01-28T18:33:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T18:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/135256\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T18:33:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T18:33:08","slug":"coworking-space-coming-to-warehouse-arts-district","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/135256\/","title":{"rendered":"Coworking space coming to Warehouse Arts District"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An Urban Office coworking location is scheduled to open in the Warehouse Arts District by the end of the year.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Lapin Development acquired an approximately 24,000-square-foot building, at 2301 3rd Ave. S., Jan. 16. It will offer 100 private offices as well as a retail space.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>President and CEO Alec Lapin, who also oversees the Urban Office concept for Houston-based developer Braun Enterprises, said that he has been interested in the Tampa Bay area for two years. The deal went under contract in November.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Braun has created more than 10 locations throughout Texas. This will be the first in Florida.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The St. Petersburg site is located in the SunRunner Target Employment Center Local Overlay. In 2024, the St. Petersburg City Council passed the zoning initiative to encourage mixed-use development in the district.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>One of the target employment uses approved by the Council was \u201cOffice, Co-working,\u201d Lapin explained. This means that the building, which is currently zoned as \u201cIndustrial Traditional,\u201d can become a coworking space without a zoning variance or any new parking requirements.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The structure, which dates back to the 1960s, was previously owned by the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/stpetecatalyst.com\/groundbreaking-special-needs-employment-center-closes\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Louise Graham Regeneration Center<\/a> \u2013 an organization that supported developmentally disabled adults. State and federal regulations\u2019 impact on funding led to its closure last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe like the adaptive reuse element for a few reasons,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen you purchase raw land or tear a building down and start from scratch, it often takes at least twice as long. Additionally, we like to keep the unique elements of the building.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The concept will also offer shared conference rooms, a podcast studio, kitchen, lounge areas, phone booths and an outdoor work space.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-111723\" class=\"wp-image-111723\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Unknown-1-1024x814.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"397\"  \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-111723\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A conference room at the West Heights Urban Office in Houston. Developer Alec Lapin said that the St. Pete location will look similar.<\/p>\n<p>Lapin hopes to attract small local businesses. Companies in industries such as law, real estate, insurance, marketing and construction have moved to Urban Office locations in the past.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe want it to be young, energetic, collaborative and entrepreneurial,\u201d he explained. \u201cAll of those adjectives are really what I think of when I think of St. Pete.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, the building will have about 2,000 square feet of retail space in the southeast corner of the property. Lapin plans to lease it to a food and beverage concept. A tenant has not yet been selected. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Urban Office hosts monthly events for members, ranging from speaker presentations to potluck meals.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat we are trying to do more of is put on events that are more catered to the specific industries that we find we have the most members of at each location,\u201d he said. \u201cThe overall goal is to create networking \u2013 not forced but organic networking \u2013 by having all of these companies in close quarters.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/urbanofficetx.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Urban Office website<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Urban Office coworking location is scheduled to open in the Warehouse Arts District by the end of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-135256","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-st-pete","9":"tag-st-pete-headlines","10":"tag-st-pete-news","11":"tag-st-petersburg","12":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","13":"tag-st-petersburg-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}