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Downtown St. Petersburg |
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Downtown St. Petersburg is experiencing a housing, shopping, and dining renaissance. Residential opportunities include luxury waterfront condominiums, urban townhouse developments, and historic hotels being restored into luxury condominiums. The area, alive and bustling with energy, is interspersed with businesses, historic homes, apartments, restaurants, and shops. Downtown St. Petersburg is a thriving waterfront area conveniently located between I-275 and Tampa Bay. A growing economy, a new Major League Baseball team, year-round sunshine, lush green parks, boating, fishing, and sailing venues, and modern entertainment facilities make St. Petersburg an excellent place to live, work and play. It offers the ultimate downtown lifestyle - relaxed and energetic with urban convenience and a community personality.
St. Petersburg anchors the Central Florida High-Tech Corridor and has attracted 20 corporate relocations bringing 9,000 new jobs since 1995. Downtown has gained over $900 million in public and private investment since 1982. The largest marina in Florida is located downtown offering easy access to Tampa Bay. The city is no longer known as a retirement community as the median age is now 38 years. The City of St. Petersburg has developed a comprehensive plan for the future referred to as Vision 2020. This visionary plan includes several mutually supportive themes. The transportation theme provides for a Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan that supports the general vision to become, "a City with a balanced transportation system designed to move people, not cars." There is also a Quality of Life and Social Equity Theme that calls for "calm" streets. The Appearance Theme emphasizes the need for "Beautiful buildings and roads," and, "renewed St. Petersburg 'traditions' such as brick streets, hex pavers, decorative lamps, street trees, and unique/local architecture." Clearly the vision for the city is continued improvement while respecting and protecting its rich historic value.
Spanish explorers first discovered the area in the mid-1500's. It was then explored by pioneers in the 1800s including General John Williams who bought 1700 acres in 1875, and by Hamilton Disston who sparked St. Pete's first great real estate promotion when he bought four million acres of land from the State in 1881. Disston also built the first hotel and stores in the area. Railroad magnate Peter Demens began successful efforts to bring a railroad system here in 1888. The town was called St. Petersburg and named after Demens whose birthplace was St. Petersburg, Russia. Tourist excursions began in 1890 when the population was 273. The Orange Belt Railroad brought them to the new town. Mirror Lake, originally known as Reservoir Lake, was the first source of drinking water and public water supply for the City. It is home to the nationally recognized Carnegie Library, the Mirror Lake Branch Library, which was built in 1914. It is also home to the Coliseum Ballroom, which opened in 1924 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Buildings. The St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Club has been open for play since the early 1920s and also boasts a dance school, chess club, and lawn bowling club. The Open Air Post Office, located on 4th Street and 1st Avenue North, is an important Mediterranean Revival building in St. Petersburg marking the transition from the city's early Mission period to the rise of Beaux Arts historicism which would make its mark in the 1920s. The post office has served St. Petersburg since dedicated in 1916 and has become a landmark for residents and visitors alike. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.
Downtown also boasts The Pier, The Vinoy, St. Petersburg Yacht Club, Snell Arcade, and many historic churches. The Florida Holocaust Museum, Florida International Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, and the Museum of History are all within the boundaries of downtown. The addition of Baywalk brought upscale shops, restaurants, and a movie theatre to the bustling downtown area. Downtown sponsors a series of outdoor events that bring out locals and visitors alike. There is a Saturday Morning Market, offering up fresh produce, baked goods, coffee, handmade soaps, flowers, specialty items, and local entertainment. First Friday is a street party with live music, fun and food on the first Friday of each month. Sundays at The Pier features live jazz and is hosted by Smooth Jazz 94.1 FM. Take a Walk on the Art Side is a downtown gallery walk on the 2nd Saturday of each month. These, and many other seasonal events make St. Petersburg a great place to live.
Downtown features a mix of residential and commercial buildings. Most structures were built in the 1900s through the 1940s, and include Queen Anne, Frame Vernacular or Florida "cracker style", American Bungalow, and Mediterranean. A majority of the residential properties are two-storied. There are several newer "courtyard developments" wherein a collection of houses face each other, separated by a pedestrian walkway instead of a vehicular street. Bungalows and vernacular homes line the walkway and neighbors can visit on their front porches while children play in the front yard without worry of vehicle traffic. Downtown boundaries are 16th Street North to Tampa Bay and 5th Avenue North to 5th Avenue South.
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