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People living, working downtown is next frontier for Clearwater's growth

 
Stu Sjouwer-man’s tech-savvy hires ask about housing downtown.
Stu Sjouwer-man’s tech-savvy hires ask about housing downtown.
Published July 14, 2016

CLEARWATER — It's a question Stu Sjouwerman gets often from young tech entrepreneurs hired at his online security company in the heart of downtown.

"Hey is there a local space where I can live and walk to work?" they ask Sjouwerman, founder of KnowBe4, a cyber awareness business housed on the 12th floor of a downtown high-rise.

The answer is, at the moment, not so much.

In the decades-long quest to revitalize the downtown district, part of that goal is to grow a housing market alongside retail, restaurants and shops, blending residents in the mix of the urban core. City officials are marketing six key parcels as prime residential space to developers, land use attorneys, and other investors, but so far, not much has taken off.

Aside from the Water's Edge and Station Square condominiums, the Nolen complex of 257 high-end units under construction on Cleveland Street will be the first full-fledged rental apartment complex in downtown when it opens in October.

Peter Collins, managing principal for the developer, Forge Capital Partners, said his company pursued the site at 901 Cleveland St. because it was in an untapped market.

Most of Clearwater's apartment buildings pepper the outskirts of downtown stretching east toward the Countryside area. But given national trends of millennials gravitating toward urban centers, he predicts a demand is coming for Clearwater despite downtown's empty storefronts.

"From my perspective, I think people have to lead and the retail and everything else follows the people," Collins said. "I think it's people wanting to be in that urban area and wanting to walk, not drive, especially as the traffic gets worse and worse. It is a chicken or the egg thing, but the people drive it."

The Nolen, with its one- and two-bedroom floor plans with names like "the hipster" and "the urbanite," averaging $1,328 a month, may be the first of its kind in the area — it should also be completed before the 76-unit affordable housing complex being constructed on North Garden Avenue.

But Urban Land Institute consultants in 2014 estimated downtown could support up to 600 new rental units over the next five years.

Jay Polglaze, executive director of the nonprofit Clearwater Downtown Partnership, said that as the employment base downtown grows, the goal is to get workers to live in the district as well.

There are more than 23 tech companies now in downtown, and some continue to grow — Sjouwerman's KnowBe4, for example, went from 30 employees to 90 in 15 months and expects to hit 300 in two to three years.

But while growth on Clearwater Beach has been effortless, Polglaze said that same "market comfortability" has not been felt across the water.

Polglaze said that despite the success of the Capitol Theatre and other businesses downtown, the district still lacks a tourist attraction, hotels, an anchor restaurant or a signature destination like a Trader Joe's.

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Either that business growth will lure the residential development or more housing units will entice the commercial and retail investors, Polglaze said.

"Everybody knows what's going on in the beach," he said. "There's absolutely no reason why we shouldn't be further along than we are. But we've got our own set of assets and challenges and perceptions."

Along with strategizing ways to revitalize the waterfront, consultants hired in April for $438,000 to develop a Bluff master plan will also make recommendations on how to boost downtown growth.

Denise Sanderson, director of city economic development and housing, said those recommendations will guide the next step for further marketing of the six identified parcels.

Since the city began marketing the lots last year, Sanderson said there have been "several inquiries, some that kind of inquired and had gone away." She said she could not disclose if the city was in current discussions with developers about any of the sites, all of which surround Cleveland Street from the downtown core east to North Betty Lane.

"We're all really talking about the same things, whether it's in St. Petersburg or other cities, but certainly in Clearwater, we recognize to have a vibrant downtown you need to look at how do you engage, how do you bring people who want to stay here, and work here and all of those things," Sanderson said.

Contact Tracey McManus at tmcmanus@tampabay.com or (727) 445-4151. Follow @TroMcManus.