The following article was published by St. Pete Rising on January 28, 2020. To access the full article, click here.
Fred Hemmer has lived in St. Petersburg for most of his life, and while he wasn’t born here, he calls St. Pete his home. After graduating from Boca Ciega High School he went on to study at St. Petersburg College and then the University of South Florida. Over the past few decades he has worked in banking and in real estate throughout Florida and has witnessed Downtown St. Pete’s transformation firsthand. Recently he even became a downtown resident himself.
After selling his Tierra Verde home, Hemmer and his wife moved into Camden Pier District, an 18-story apartment building in Downtown St. Pete. And although they traded their waterfront home for a high-rise, they viewed the move as an upgrade, “Downtown has so much entertainment to offer,” Hemmer says, “We were tired of always driving downtown and figured, ‘Why not just move there?’”
Now, Hemmer is looking to use his decades of experience in banking and real estate to further transform Downtown St. Pete. A group of locals, led by Hemmer, are proposing an 18-story condominium tower for the northeast corner of 3rd Avenue North and 8th Street North. The project, named Reflection, will be located a block from Mirror Lake and will offer 77 units in a modern building with a glass facade. The building was designed by SMP Architecture.
The first six stories of Reflection will consist of parking along with approximately 5,300 square feet of ground floor retail space. The condominium’s residences will be located on floors seven through seventeen.
Unlike other condominium buildings in Downtown St. Pete, the top floor won’t contain penthouse units. Instead, drawing on his experience living at Camden Pier District, Hemmer’s plans call for a rooftop amenity deck featuring a resort style pool that will offer 360 degree views of the city.
Units at Reflection will range from 1,300 square feet to over 2,300 square feet with between one and three bedrooms. Pricing is set to begin in the $600,000s, which is about 30% lower than Beach Drive prices, and will rise to around $1.3 million. That pricing is attainable because of the project’s location west of the downtown core.
Hemmer recognizes the project may attract a different buyer than other areas of downtown, “We aren’t trying to be Beach Drive,” he says. He thinks Reflection will appeal to more primary homeowners than some of the Beach Drive towers and potentially to young professionals who want to be located more inland, closer to hip neighborhoods like the EDGE District.
If all goes according to plan, construction should begin in the fourth quarter of 2020 or first quarter of 2021. Total construction costs are expected to be around $50 million and the building is expected to stand 200 feet tall.
