City closes $6.4 million land sale for The Central in the EDGE District of downtown St. Pete

The City of St. Petersburg has closed a $6.4 million land sale for The Central, a planned $200 million blended-exercise pattern in the EDGE District, winding up a property switch that had held up construction for months.

The deal became signed on Election Day, November third, the same day Charlie Crist defeated Mayor Ken Welch, transferring portions of the used police headquarters property at 1300 1st Avenue North to entities affiliated with Ellison Pattern.

The closing clears the draw for persevered work on the 2.1-acre pattern, which can consist of Class A places of work, a Marriott Autograph Assortment resort, retail situation, 42 crew apartments, and public gathering spaces.

“That is a sizable day for The Central and for the EDGE District,” Casey Ellison, president and CEO of Ellison Pattern, talked about in an announcement. “The buzz surrounding this mission has persevered to develop, and this milestone brings us one step nearer to delivering a stir field that can assemble original opportunities and fresh vitality to the neighborhood.”

For nearby businesses and residents, the most seen development so a ways has been the 531-situation public parking storage, which opened in June 2025 across from Ferg’s Sports activities Bar.

The sale excludes 400 parking spaces spread across 5 floors of the storage, matching the sequence of public spaces promised when the redevelopment proposal became selected in 2019.

Ellison says the storage will remain open for the duration of construction of the sigh of industrial constructing and resort.

With the land switch complete, the developer is shifting ahead with plans for Halcyon, an sigh of industrial constructing alongside Central Avenue that Ellison now describes as approximately 116,000 square toes of Class A sigh of industrial situation across 10 floors, with extra than 11,000 square toes of floor-floor retail.

Halcyon’s planned providers consist of exterior balconies and entry to the pattern’s resort providers.

Wendy Giffin of Cushman & Wakefield is leading sigh of industrial leasing, and Ellison says extra leasing bulletins are anticipated soon.

The constructing has already attracted a prominent future occupant. In July 2025, Cathie Wood’s ARK Make investments announced plans to relocate its headquarters from 200 Central Avenue to Halcyon.

Alongside the places of work, the Central Resort is now planned as a 165-room Marriott Autograph Assortment property, a diminutive good buy from the previously announced 168 rooms. The resort will feature a signature restaurant, a rooftop deck, and tournament spaces.

Chef and television persona Geoffrey Zakarian previously announced plans for a restaurant inner the resort. His firm, Zakarian Hospitality, is additionally anticipated to oversee the resort’s food and beverage operations and present hospitality providers for Halcyon. The restaurant’s name and delicacies have not been announced.

Between the constructions, Central Plaza will present a landscaped public gathering situation connecting the resort, places of work, eating, and retail.

A public artwork installation by Ya La’ford will honor the Gallant Twelve, the Gloomy St. Petersburg police officers who challenged discriminatory therapy for the duration of the division.

The housing component will elevate 42 profits-restricted apartments fronting 1st Avenue North, with requirements that remain enforceable after the sale.

Of these apartments, 34 ought to wait on households incomes at or below 120% of the placement median profits (AMI), whereas eight ought to wait on households incomes at or below 80% of AMI. All apartments can have restricted rents.

The neighborhood ought to consist of one-, two-, and three-mattress room apartments, with on the least two items of every and every mattress room measurement.

These affordability restrictions will remain in sigh for Two decades after the final observe certificate of occupancy or through June thirtieth, 2047, whichever is later.

Additionally, on the least 5 apartments ought to originally be reserved and equipped to metropolis workers sooner than turning into available to a good deal of qualifying households in the occasion that they remain unrented at opening.

A put up-closing settlement, which became recorded on November 4th, requires the sigh of industrial, retail, and crew housing parts to be accomplished by January 1st, 2030.

The settlement additionally references a $4 million hang-money mortgage from the metropolis linked to the crew apartments and a $1 million credit for demolition of the used police headquarters and extra crew rental items.

Recorded restrictions limits pattern on the resort pad to a resort or an sigh of industrial constructing with linked floor-floor retail. A micro-unit residential constructing is explicitly prohibited.

The settlement acknowledges that the property is being equipped below beautiful market fee in change for the sigh of industrial pattern, crew housing, and linked financial advantages.

Failure to complete the sigh of industrial situation might maybe consequence in $1 million in liquidated damages, whereas failure to manufacture the crew housing might maybe consequence in $6 million in liquidated damages.

The closing marks but every other milestone in a redevelopment effort that began in 2019, when then-Mayor Rick Kriseman selected Edge Central from seven proposals for the used police headquarters property.

City Council accredited the customary pattern settlement in 2021. The mission, previously referred to as Orange Station, later shifted from a conception that included condominiums to one who gains a resort. A ceremonial groundbreaking followed in February 2024.

Tim Clemmons of St. Pete-based completely mostly Order Architecture designed the pattern.

“We’re ready for the neighborhood to delivery up seeing The Central upward thrust,” Ellison talked about. “The Central will assemble a sigh that belongs to St. Petersburg and adds one thing meaningful to the metropolis for generations.”