New downtown St. Petersburg townhomes will start at nearly $1.2 million

In yet another sign of the Tampa Bay area’s breakneck rise in home prices and desirability, a developer has announced new luxury townhomes in downtown St. Petersburg — starting at $1.156 million each.

The four townhomes, dubbed Soma, will be at 630 4th Ave S, and will be 2,890 square feet each, according to a news release this week from Premier Sotheby’s International Realty, which is handling the sale of the units. Each will have three bedrooms and three-and-a-half bathrooms, plus an elevator, 10-foot ceilings, quartz countertops and a covered balcony.

The project is expected to begin construction in December, with completion in September 2022, according to Sotheby’s. The release said Soma will be “an oasis mere steps away from downtown St. Petersburg’s bustling nightlife, diverse art scene and countless cultural offerings.”

The developer on the project, St. Pete Development Company, is also spearheading a different project called Driftwood on Central, which is currently under construction at 2875 Central Avenue. That project will feature six townhomes starting at $479,000 as well as five mixed-use units which have storefronts and a residence above them. That project is scheduled to be completed in January 2022, with the townhomes likely finished sooner. All the units have already sold, according to Nick Janovsky, development director of St. Pete Development Company.

Soma is sure to be the priciest place on the block — the neighboring properties are a duplex built in 1911 and an apartment building constructed in 1919, whose market values are about $356,000 and $610,000 respectively, according to the Pinellas County Appraiser. Market values determined by public property appraisers’ offices tend to underestimate the actual resale value.

But while top-dollar condos are much more common, it’s not unheard of to see townhomes in St. Petersburg priced at $1 million or more. Six townhomes in the city limits have sold for seven-figure price tags since this time last year, according to the Multiple Listing Service.