Developers Plan Branded Condo Tower in St. Petersburg

After a bevy of luxury hotel brands attached their names to new condo projects in Tampa, the city across the Bay is aiming for its first five-star condo development.

Local real estate firm, Feldman Equities, is partnering with national developer Property Markets Group (PMG) and City Office REIT on a project announced this month to transform a downtown parking garage in St. Petersburg into a luxury condo tower, the Tampa Bay Times reported.

Dan Kaplan, managing partner at PMG, said in a statement that the partners are “actively finalizing plans to bring a five-star, luxury-branded condominium project to St. Petersburg, which will continue to enhance the vision city officials and community leaders have for the city.”

City Office REIT owns the garage at the proposed development site at 100 Second Avenue S.

Local news outlets have reported that the partners are planning to build a 44-story condo tower that will carry the Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts brand, details the developers did not confirm in their public announcement, the Times reported.

Branded condo projects in Tampa include developments involving the Ritz-Carlton, Edition, and Pendry hotel brands. In May, Related Group’s Ritz Carlton Residences Tampa set a new condo sales record when the penthouse in the new tower fetched $11.6M.

The demand for luxury residences also is outpacing the supply in St. Petersburg, with excess demand and robust sales attracting more developers, the report said.

In branded condo partnerships between developers and hotel brands, the hotelier usually collects a portion of the unit sales while providing its brand name and hotel-like amenities to the condo owners. Some of these projects include hotels as well as condos, like The Tampa Edition and the Pendry tower.

According to a 2023 report from Savills, branded residences offering luxury amenities bring in a 30% premium on average.

High-profile luxury brands including automakers and fashion icons have been lining up this year to attach their brands and styling to condo projects in South Florida.

Last month, fashion and media company Elle announced it is teaming up with Vertical Developments and Urban Network Capital Group on the brand’s first residential project—to be known as Elle Residences Miami—a 25-story condo and hotel tower that will be built on a half-acre site at 3618 Northeast Fifth Avenue.

The developers have inked a licensing agreement with Lagardere News, a unit of Paris-based Lagardere Group, which owns Elle, the French company announced. The condo tower in Miami’s Edgewater section will include 180 units, as well as a penthouse collection.

In February, Mercedes-Benz announced it would brand a luxury condo tower in Miami’s Brickell neighborhood that will become the German automaker’s first branded North American real estate development.

Mercedes-Benz entered an agreement with JDS Development Group to put its brand on a 67-story, 2.5M SF luxury project that is one of the largest under construction in Florida. Terms of the licensing deal were not disclosed.

The development, which began in 2022 under the name of 1 Southside Park, will now be called Mercedes-Benz Places. The cube-shaped structure will be home to 791 residences ranging from studios to three-bedroom condos, as well as penthouses.

Renderings of the silver-clad building include a huge Mercedes-Benz logo over the entrance. The mixed-use tower will include 200K SF of office space, a 174-key treehouse hotel, retail space, and a city of Miami fire station.

A Mercedes-Benz design team is working in collaboration with SHoP Architects to infuse the Brickell project with the automaker’s “hot and cool” design philosophy. Urban landscape designers Field Operations, who worked on NYC’s High Line, are designing green spaces at Mercedes-Benz Places.

Elle’s new branded condo development will permit condo buyers to make the units available for short-term rentals.

More than half of the nearly 21,000 units in the 31 condo projects in the development pipeline in South Florida will allow condo buyers to make the units available for short-term rentals with few restrictions, according to a report from ISG World.

The trend toward condo developments that permit short-term rentals has been rising due to continued demand from buyers, including foreign investors. Short-term rental-friendly condos can be priced lower and often sell out faster as investors buy them to generate income from rents.