BayWalk shopping center on the market for $8 million
TAMPA – For Sale: A two-story urban shopping court in the heart of prospering St. Petersburg that’s fallen on hard times and become a political lightning rod.
On the plus side, there’s plenty of room for new stores, as just five tenants take up only 12 percent of the available square footage.
Current owners CW Capital formally put the BayWalk shopping center up for sale Wednesday, marketing the city-block complex as a turnaround opportunity. List price: $8 million.
“All the recent publicity has really attracted interest from some potential buyers,” said Michael Milano, a broker with the commercial real estate firm Colliers International marketing the property. “So the owners are looking to see what the market has to offer, and potentially turn it over to a more entrepreneurial owner.”
Fresh development nearby has put the neighborhood on an upward track – proving the urban renewal the mall was originally designed to trigger has now overtaken the property itself.
The 74,500-square foot complex has gone through a lot since opening in 2000 as part of an urban renewal drive by the City of St. Petersburg.
“First place I kissed my wife, right outside Dan Marino’s Martini Bar,” said one former fan, Donald Gabel. “You would not catch me dead there now. Way too much riff-raff. Sad but true.”
For a time, the $40 million project bustled as an alternative to suburban megamalls, thriving as an urban hub and packed with upscale retailers, restaurants and a busy movie theater. Besides Central Avenue, there were few other spots in sleepy downtown St. Petersburg for an urban experience.
But at times, Baywalk also functioned as a kind of town square, and the main sidewalk entrance became a popular choke-point spot for people to protest about virtually any political topic.
Protesters wanted a venue to vent their views. Mall owners wanted a peaceful path for potential shoppers. City officials deadlocked on selling the sidewalk to the mall, and the mall continued to empty.
Whether those protests caused the mall’s downfall or the space fell on hard times because suburban malls sucked off shopper traffic, the property changed hands while falling further into financial ruin. Even owners of the Muvico movie theaters decried the state of the property and lack of foot traffic.
In February 2009, Wells Fargo Bank took back the property as the only bidder at a foreclosure sale at the Pinellas County Courthouse. Price: $100.
Through this time, the mall struggled with kids hanging around the mall that created an atmosphere retailers said spooked shoppers. So mall managers in June 2009 put in a curfew that banned any skateboards and prohibited any unaccompanied person under 21 from the central courtyard. Along the way, mall managers experimented with everything from wine tastings to outdoor art markets.
With that history, Milano said the complex has huge upside.
It’s a block from the prospering Beach Drive, where a series of new, upscale restaurants opened recently. There’s the nearby Dali Museum that just opened in a new space. There’s the new Chihuly Collection of art glass sculptures. And there’s the waterfront and St. Petersburg Pier just a bit down the street.
The Muvico movie theater at the center of the property is part of a different ownership slice of the mall, Milano said, and is not part of the package for sale.
“In this economy, every property today comes with its own challenges to sell,” Milano said. “This complex caters to a different type of shopper.” He compares it to other, urban properties that have gone through their own struggles: Channelside in Tampa and the Centro Ybor space on Seventh Avenue in Ybor City.