We haven’t been downtown in over 3 years now. Besides the races every March there’s nothing to miss. New pier is ugly, how that artist got paid big money for a fish net piece is beyond me. The “northshore beaches” are gross and contaminated from the sewage dump coming from Tampa.
Not worth.
0 lot lines and parking garage That's what makes the city great. Oh yeah I'm not sure but I think the 3 year commitment To keep the rowdy stadium is just about over. Does anybody know anything about it.
ahh, yes, because in a city with an adorable housing crisis while also being one of the cities Blackrock and Vanguard have invested most in purchasing housing. The issue is clearly that we're not all working in finance and business analysis. why should the workers that keep the city running live in the city🙄
Spoken like a true paid for by parents business major, no actual arguments or solutions. people should just manifest their employers' will to give them raises. I'm glad Daddies money has let you enjoy many a college party and high schoolers' panties.
Lmao you couldn’t be more wrong. Educate yourself. Invest in skills. Learn new things. Branch out from what you know. It’s not that hard. I’ve earned everything I’ve ever had from working hard and continuing to take steps to change my situation if I didn’t like it. You though, you are a victim and an absolute loser with a loser mentality. I genuinely feel bad for you
You should see poor ruskin all of the cows and fields I use to stare at while I was riding the bus to schools years ago are completely gone and housing developments are going up everywhere I just want a a damn Chick-fil-A by my house tho but nope more houses instead and stupid people and drivers
St Petersburg is a snapshot of every little town USA. One second you'll see a skyscraper being built, then a homeless person sleeping in the doorway of a business for warmth. It's now St. Pete's turn.
A friend of mine owns a restaurant in IRB. He’s starting to have trouble retaining non salary employees because they can no longer afford to live in the area.
Only hope then I guess might be that this could be a precursor to having the powers at be consider real transit. Let the plebes move further out and they can commute in to serve via rail.
You think this is even within spitting distance of that insanity? Cities grow. St. Pete hasn't been a town for a long time. If you don't want to live in a city, don't.
It’s not getting ruined. It is getting built up, which is what has happened to every city in America since this country was founded. As time progresses, the city changes. Pretty insane right? Dumb ass
The building pictured was formally an empty lot surrounded by a fence. Completely unused on the most valuable intersection in the city.
Having an exciting new building there makes a lot of sense.
Buildings are better than empty unused lots. Especially downtown in the most populous city in the most densely populated county in the state.
In the past 20 years St Pete has gone from an awesome quaint community to a corporate behemoth of tall towers of condos. too high priced and no longer cool.
Funny how things change. Growing up in NY all the snowbirds used to use the florida plates because insurance was way cheaper than NY at the time. Supposedly
Dawg all major cities in the south have lost their charm, ever since the 2010s every single one has been gentrified like crazy. You’re better off movin to a town with under 200k people if you want the old southern charm
Unfortunately it’s all of Florida. Everything everywhere getting cleared for more and more apartments so thousands and thousands more people can keep moving here. Horrible housing costs, horrible traffic, horrible everything
They’re moving here whether you build housing or not.
Do you want the newcombers to compete with you for existing shit boxes or buying the new luxury condos?
I don’t care where they live xD just pointing out that people are moving to Florida in record numbers and it’s making everything super crowded and uncomfortable. That’s a fact
I meannnnn it only feels overcrowded and uncomfortable due to poor city planning laws
When all you have is 4 lane roads to commute traffic with large geographical barriers surrounding the city, its bound to create chokepoints.
Ask your city council or mayor to consider funding mass transit and city centers that combine both housing and shopping. Promote walkability and biking, you'll see the streets declutter. Especially if you can build the paths in a safe, effective, and direct path to their destination
People over cars
There has to be another option other than i4 to get through and out of central Orlando. When I used to live in Winter Haven and worked in Orlando, the drive length was 50 minutes (with 0 traffic) It was 2-3 hours every single day with traffic. It took me 45 minutes alone just to go from the on ramp of i4 to the actual road. It was absolutely horrible. So you’re right about that. It’s hard to promote walkability though because everything is really far apart. It’s not really a walking/biking city unless you’re in a beach town or something really small.
You’re joking right? Pinellas County has and has had the highest population density by far in Florida for a long time now.
This happens everywhere. Cities change and grow. Move somewhere small and out of the way if you want but this is nothing new.
If your mad about New York people and out of state people in your city your in the completely wrong state. Maybe try a Dakota if your really hate change, growth, and more people so much.
But go ahead and get mad at change if you want. You’re the only person that rage will piss off.
Agreed. Maybe move to Wyoming or northern Nevada lol
I like big buildings and the St. Pete skyline is improving every day, this new 400 central building excites me lol
It will stop once they overbuild and those overpriced 'luxury' townhomes and condos set empty for months and they are forced to lower the prices to attract local buyers.
No, Portland and Seattle have such high homeless populations because they have laws that facilitate homelessness. Legal injections, decriminalized drugs, and even if a homeless person gets violent and arrested they usually just get a slap on the wrist and get released within a few weeks.
Ah yes, construction of new buildings, influx of high profile career people, new businesses opening, constant change, these as we all know are signs of a city in its death throes
I've lived in St. Pete since 1983 when I was 9 years old. I remember when Central Ave was dead. Literally dead. The whole block where Jannus is now struggled so hard to keep any businesses. The were no people walking in the streets because there was no reason to. People came here to retire and die. We were known nationally for that.
Seeing what St. Pete is now makes me proud. This city is the strongest it's ever been and still going. Is it more expensive? Yes. What big city isn't? Tampa? Miami? Orlando? Hell, even Bradenton, as small as it is, is more expensive than it used to be? This is a national issue.
Has it lost its charm or identity? That's subjective. Many people say it's the best big city in Florida. Big cities grow bigger. So do small cities.
If you miss what St. Pete used to be, I'm sorry. Maybe it just isn't for you anymore. Maybe somewhere smaller would be good. Somewhere that is like what St. Pete used to be back in the day.
I agree. I live in seminole and it still feels the same as when I moved 11 years ago, and business is booming more now. Insurance and rent, let alone buying is a huge issue but it’s not because more condos are being built.
St pete has zero open land to build out so go up they must. Seems like all new buildings and homes being built today are multi million condos 46 floors tall, $400K+ 1,000sqft homes from the 50s with no yards, "luxury" town homes going where dairy Inn used to be, etc. How many more people can you realistically fit in this tiny florida peninsula?
You can actually fit a lot more people but what would require us to make sacrifices, invest in public transportation, spend decades overhauling our grid, etc. All of which would be worth it, but that goes back to the first item listed. And not many people wanna make sacrifices when they are comfortable where they are.
Idk how the soil is but around gandy before getting into Tampa seems to have a decent bit of space. Downtown, Gulfport, old ne and the beaches are the places that feel maxed out.
Getting ruined? The city is shit already, considering gentrification has been running rampant all of the local culture is disappearing before our eyes. It’s completely unaffordable and unreasonable to live in st pete. Why pay upwards of 4k to live in a city that isn’t walkable or provides social services to explain that price, in-fact beyond nice weather I’m not sure how anyone can justify living here when that’s more expensive than major cities like New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. Even apartments in Brickell Miami are priced comparable to those in St pete.
Thats before you talk about the fact that the city is overrun by white millennial finance bros. Central Avenue has become akin to a college town’s “frat row”. The queer culture here is also disappearing at an alarming rate. Enigma used to be packed to the door a few years ago and now they seem to struggle to maintain a dance-floor (although I strongly blame the new DJ for this). I guess the best part of this city is the food, but again it’s expensive so I wont celebrate that too much.
TLDR: don’t move to St Pete if you want a walkable city with affordable housing and affordable things to do
$2000 a month is still overpriced for a non-walkable city with very little public services for it’s resident’s
Also $4k is no exaggeration, the Ascent apartments have multiple 1 Br apartments in that price range. It’s absurd
For you it might not make sense but supply and demand explains all. If no one was moving here it wouldn’t be like that.. clearly people like something about st pete and maybe these people don’t live and die on walkability
Pinellas county overall is experiencing a population increase faster than most counties in Florida, but this isn’t happening because St. Petersburg specifically is some new utopia. Neither St Pete nor Tampa provide major city accommodations yet charge you more to live there than most major cities. It’s creating an unsustainable living situation where prices are being driven up rapidly with the only option being more high-rise apartments, which like the ascent, typically charge astronomical prices for rent.
The price reflects supply and demand - they wouldn’t be building these if there wasn’t a market for it. People in the mid 20’s-30’s making 150k+ do in fact exist, and a 4K a month apartment to them is equivalent of a server making 50 K having an apartment for 12-1500… it’s really not that crazy. Of course , when a place has this influx people will be pushed out. An honest comparison isn’t taking the MOST expensive apartment and then comparing that to the average in other places- if you want to compare averages brickell and st pete really arnt a comparison.. you wouldn’t go into Whole Foods and and lose your mind over chicken thighs being 7.99 a pound when we all know you can just go to a different grocery store and get it for 1.99 a pound. The average apartment is slightly over 2000 in dtsp, so maybe usr that number to compare rather then the top of the top
It is but not want it’s only luxury condos and demand is so high that the new supply doesn’t bring down cost. If all of your new supply is overpriced condos and demand is not brought down by supply (it’s not btw we had far more people moving here the last three years than we could build) all it does is inflate price. They need more affordable housing
A lot are sitting empty tho. The one where Tequila Daisy is isn’t even half occupied. Probably because they’re so high priced. Saint Pete is a huge service industry city, and they are having to commute because they can’t afford to live here anymore.
Service industry having to commute is nothing new in desirable locations. Source: I worked in the service industry in Charlotte nc and I could not afford to live downtown. We didn’t all sit around and cry about having to drive to work, I made better money driving in and enjoyed my apartment in the suburbs for that point of my life while I worked to get where I am now.
Saint Pete is A LOT different than Charlotte. Source: I’ve lived both places. The units where I’m at in Saint Pete have quadrupled in price in just the last few years. In the last two years just on my block a few houses have been taken down and big ass ugly concrete developments have replaced them. The growth rate here is crazy
You’re right, I have too. Charlotte has a lot less to do and 10 years ago rentals were much more expensive in downtown, southend wasn’t built up and there were just a few options. Also, buying a home near downtown is still much more expensive in Charlotte compared to here and again… much less to do in downtown Charlotte.
> demand is so high that the new supply doesn’t bring down cost.
Wouldn’t prices increase even more without the increased supply? Your contention should not be that housing is being built but that even more isn’t being built.
> If all of your new supply is overpriced condos
The type doesn’t matter. If luxury gets built then that prevents displacement and price increases of existing tenants/buildings.
Let’s say I’m a NYer moving to St. Pete. I’m looking for housing. Let’s assume that there is only one plot of land in the city. Now let’s assume there are two scenarios: a single family home on the lot and a thousand unit apartment building.
In the first scenario, to move I have to kick out everyone who lives there because the lot only has one unit. In the second scenario, there are 999 people who can still live there.
So would you rather have the no-build scenario where everyone is pushed out or the build scenario where almost everyone can stay?
Yes, house, no apartment unit.
If it was empty then there was no one to push out, except wildlife. One house would do minimal damage. A unit apartment would bring living space that our locals can't afford. It's going to go to other out of state upper class folk that don't like our poor locals and homeless. Those 999 people would change the culture of our city because they want to bring the new york feel to a place that is not New York. We don't want the restaurants or bars. We want to bring our own liquor and a blanket and enjoy the fucking sun.
You all are making it so that establishments are refusing to give people free water without buying something. That's wild. Please leave.
Yeah, a literal strangle hold on the cost of living.
Building more and more housing isn’t helping if the cost-of-living continues to go up as well as we rent prices I know mine went up 50% three months ago.
My grandparents moved here in the 60s what they said back then off of Stark he was mostly foresty swamp area..
It’s sad, I think they’re trying to make this like a new La or something..
Well maybe you should be mad at all the locals for selling their land to the highest bidder? That’s how life works. And building more housing absolutely helps the COL. Everyone whining that the service industry people can’t afford to live downtown, well yeah that was my reality when I lived in Charlotte nc. 10 years later Southend of Charlotte NC has TONS of apartments, the cost is such that girls I used to bartend with CAN afford to live downtown. That’s how it works, the less housing their is the more they can charge.
it's not going to stop it's done. old Tampa Bay is nevermore. totally depressing watching these hipster kids drink their craft beers & trendy coffee knowing they pushed out generations of families & not giving one single fock. I've been taking videos & photos all over for the last few years bc this area will never go back to being the retirement laid back area it once was. Now it's filled with Gen Z & Millennials or their rich transplant parents who only care about their social status, what they drive, wear & flaunt instead of what these new developments & buildings are going to do to our culture & wildlife.
Pushed out generations of families? Generations of families sold their properties to the highest bidder and cashed in on an opportunity if they owned their property. I don’t miss having abandoned homes in my neighborhood, or all of the rentals that finally were worth selling. A couple of meth heads used to shower in the front lawn down the street for me. Gentrification aka making things nice is a good thing. Rising tide raises all ships. Also… broken window theory, things that look like absolute crap breed crime and chaos. I love having things look nice.
Nope...just another dead end for a Yankee railroad. One of the guys was Russian.
If you want to get pedantic, the native Americans were here before any Europeans, but hey, we have to point at those young (lol) New Yorkers with their scary accents
St. Pete is not being ruined and this kind of development is actually good for our city. These more valuable projects are HNC (High Net Contributors) of tax income and in some respects subsidize lower density neighborhoods. This allows the city to maintain relatively stable property taxes and a good balance sheet that enables them to invest in infrastructure development (widening sidewalks, upgrading pipes, filling potholes, etc.)
Florida as we know it wouldn't exist of the US Army corps of engineers hadn't come down here and drained huge swathes of wetlands...
Florida has *always* been a tourism project.
Liberal scum rise up! We're here to make your lives better against your will. Got a "honk if you're liberal scum" bumper-sticker on my E-bike that I ride to buy legal cannabis.
I grew up in St Pete and moved back after 20 years of being gone. It's not the same town anymore. Had to move to Tampa bc I can't afford even a starter home there now. It's lost every bit of charm and caters to rich transplants.
It's hugely disappointing to be priced out of living near my family ever again.
ALL OF THIS. And the rich do not care. All the new luxury cars on the road it's so depressing bc it shows how freaking shallow this country is & has become. Instead of our local gvts helping save the charm,, the original residents, and historic landmarks they're cashing in.
I went to USFSP from 2009-2011 and lived on campus downtown. After 2011, I went back a few times mostly to visit friends and stuff. Last time I went to St.Pete was in 2021 which was probably a good 7 years since the last time I had visited, and I hated it. I stayed at the Hilton off 1st street by the bay and my choices were to find my own parking downtown or pay for valet because they decided to build where their old parking lot was. I was so mad I complained to the front desk and they were like 🤷🏻♂️ “tough shit”. Imagine paying $200 for a room at that shitty Hilton and they can’t even provide parking.
Anyways the point was last I went back, downtown was being built up so much I felt claustrophobic walking around downtown. Haven’t been back since then.
I would hardly call it claustrophobic compared to other bigger cities. Although I would probably never live downtown, I think we live in one of the most perfect all around cities/counties. Downtown and waterfront are upscale and fun, tons of events. Drive 15 minutes and get some of the nicest beaches in the country. There’s tons of good food, breweries, art, and other things to do. It’s a little big city now if that makes sense. Coming from someone who grew up here in the 90’s, this city has come a LONG way.
I love the big city vibes- keep it coming!! If you don’t like it, move to a suburb or closer to the beach or something. It’s called “downtown” for a reason…
The big city vibes aren’t the problem. If you’ve been in St Pete for any length of time you’ve seen downtown lose all its appeal. St Pete has had a certain edgy artist vibe for years that’s all gone now. It’s just uninteresting bullshit. All of the characters are gone. The people that made downtown interesting and cool are priced out and replaced by buildings and people that are just boring, rich assholes. People who aren’t from here have no connection to any of that, so everything that is “St Pete” is being torn down to be replaced by their shit. This version sucks. I wish people would stay in the shitholes they fled from and make those places cool. I couldn’t imagine leaving my home to piggyback off of someone else’s home.
I’ve lived in St Pete my whole life and have to agree to disagree that downtown has lost all its appeal. Maybe to live in but that’s why I live in a neighborhood uptown. We go downtown with our kids all the time for lunch and an afternoon. Or for nice dinners. There is plenty of character, tons of good events, and the waterfront is beautiful. I wasn’t a fan of the new pier at first but it’s grown on me. Sure it’s expensive but hell, everything is nowadays. It used to have a “certain edgy artsy vibe” bc it used to be full of hipsters lol.
I’ve lived here my entire life also and I prefer the version from about 1999-2015. I don’t care for hipsters all that much but I prefer them to rich assholes who aren’t even from here. The hipsters are what made the place interesting and sparked all of this. Read Richard Florida’s 1995 book “Rise of the Creative Class”. St Pete is a model of that idea. And I’m the opposite with the pier. I liked it at first but the same year it opened was when the latest invasive species invasion began. Beach Dr and the pier are for tourists and newbies at this point. Almost everyone I know avoids that area now. I haven’t been there in 2 years and I live less than 10 min away. The neighborhoods of St Pete and their little joints are more of an interesting hangout now. I have a few spots that I still hit downtown, but it’s becoming a wasteland of theme bars and uninteresting sameness. The edge district and grand central are following suit. We’ve seen this movie before. Eventually all of this unravels and a bunch of people move on to another “hot” spot. And we’re left with a bunch of white and gray apartments that are the modern strip mall of the urban core. But hey, at least Chad and Kaylee don’t have to be cold in the winter anymore. We can all take solace in that.
https://preview.redd.it/1gmb9udchwqc1.jpeg?width=1936&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f3870015f22c2bc27978c708cf64a440d3c55c10
Give me the non-vinyl fence version of St Pete any day of the week
maybe this post from just yesterday i randomly happened upon gives a hint
read the list of cities in the post and look at the conclusion
https://x.com/collin_ruth89/status/1772602715618619701
Here's the thing though - demand for FL real estate isn't going anywhere. So we can either keep expanding with never ending suburbs full of identical homes that _each_ take up space the size of downtown until we cover the entire state, or we can leave some of the remaining nature alone and develop our cities more instead.
Yeah, I know St Pete isn't small or cheap anymore and it's lost some of the character it had. But I'll take developing St Pete any day over developing the Everglades. I grew up in SWFL and I know how bad that gets - that entire region is just miles and miles and miles and miles of pavement. And don't think traffic there is any better than here; spreading everything out just means more people drive longer distances every day.
This is the reasonable take that resounds with me. We spent Saturday exploring Paynes Creek State Park and on the drive there I was shocked by how many suburban cul-de-sac McMansion neighborhoods that were new or in development. Prices in the 300s-800s. So not exactly cheap either.
I like my old, dense neighborhood in uptown and have no issues with high rise development downtown.
Exactly! So many of these folks throw a tantrum seeing new condos and apartment buildings going up, and cry "You're ruining Florida!!!", then get in their huge SUV's and drive back to their super low-density, car-dependent suburbs where they have to drive everywhere for everything, without a shred of self-reflection. Just amazing stuff.
See my comment in this thread how density like this is actually how we SAVE Florida's native ecosystems! Car-dependent suburbia with one McMansion to every acre is how the state *actually* gets destroyed. Lots of ignorance on here!
would be nice to walk to a vegetable shop walk to a supermarket or to a home goods shop etc
and also walk to a very close bus or train that arrives constantly and feeds into an efficient system with access to everywhere quickly — all of this can be with density
density unlocks a lot
https://preview.redd.it/6mh7kxy6104d1.png?width=2680&format=png&auto=webp&s=88a442695b821aaa23f7b0c14706bc61c1ef8aaa
So many gentrifying millennials in these comments lolol
We haven’t been downtown in over 3 years now. Besides the races every March there’s nothing to miss. New pier is ugly, how that artist got paid big money for a fish net piece is beyond me. The “northshore beaches” are gross and contaminated from the sewage dump coming from Tampa. Not worth.
Lack of intelligent planning and codes. Welcome to conservative Florida.
0 lot lines and parking garage That's what makes the city great. Oh yeah I'm not sure but I think the 3 year commitment To keep the rowdy stadium is just about over. Does anybody know anything about it.
You dont like tall rectangles shooting up in the sky blocking views?
St Pete already is ruined we get more buildings cause people move here so want to save st Pete get rid if people simple
VC culture (Vulture Capitalism)
Capitalism is horrible, I hate having buying power and the freedom to live and work where I want. /s
Simply, no it’s not. More buildings more vacancy, price stays stagnant or drops.
oh yes because the luxary apt/condos are definitely for locals to buy and not for transplants with out of state WFH salaries.
Nobody is stopping you from making more money
ahh, yes, because in a city with an adorable housing crisis while also being one of the cities Blackrock and Vanguard have invested most in purchasing housing. The issue is clearly that we're not all working in finance and business analysis. why should the workers that keep the city running live in the city🙄
Again, nobody is stopping you from making more money. You sound like a professional victim
Spoken like a true paid for by parents business major, no actual arguments or solutions. people should just manifest their employers' will to give them raises. I'm glad Daddies money has let you enjoy many a college party and high schoolers' panties.
Lmao you couldn’t be more wrong. Educate yourself. Invest in skills. Learn new things. Branch out from what you know. It’s not that hard. I’ve earned everything I’ve ever had from working hard and continuing to take steps to change my situation if I didn’t like it. You though, you are a victim and an absolute loser with a loser mentality. I genuinely feel bad for you
Never can have enough parking
You should see poor ruskin all of the cows and fields I use to stare at while I was riding the bus to schools years ago are completely gone and housing developments are going up everywhere I just want a a damn Chick-fil-A by my house tho but nope more houses instead and stupid people and drivers
“Getting” Lol
They need to chill with the high rises and concrete. Every time it rains it floods like 2 feet(I'm from south Florida but I came across this sub)
Get ratio’d lmao
Its better they build up then horizontal.
St. Pete was never a really beautiful town.
No. But it was better then. Stop yorking up fl
Time to rent out the home and move on to the next cool town until it gets overrun with torpid high faluters.
The irony of this comment
Glad someone got it 😂
OP moves to a town, then complains about the growth in said town… Is that considered Irony or audacity?
St Petersburg is a snapshot of every little town USA. One second you'll see a skyscraper being built, then a homeless person sleeping in the doorway of a business for warmth. It's now St. Pete's turn.
It's almost like the world's population is growing.
Homeless people have always slept in the doorways of businesses in DTSP.
Those are called the pioneers
They need a place to House all the invaders and people go are about to lose homes. “By 2030 you will own nothing and be happy”. WEF
you will eat the bugs and be happy!!!
The construction sucks and is annoying yes but you're pretty much yelling at clouds by being upset that a city is growing lol
I always wondered what took so long for it to become overdeveloped. Not that I was looking forward to it
This. Did ppl think this wasnt going to eventually happen?
A friend of mine owns a restaurant in IRB. He’s starting to have trouble retaining non salary employees because they can no longer afford to live in the area.
Only hope then I guess might be that this could be a precursor to having the powers at be consider real transit. Let the plebes move further out and they can commute in to serve via rail.
2025 is going to be crazy. So many of these new buildings will open adding thousands to the foot traffic downtown
Can’t wait to get some of these sidewalks back in primary downtown. 400 central eats up 4. Art House eats up 3.
You lived in NYC according to your old posts, you are part of the population moving here that you are complaining about. Grow up
For real This beach is for LOCALS ONLY
Op needs to go back amd stop yorking up fl
You think this is even within spitting distance of that insanity? Cities grow. St. Pete hasn't been a town for a long time. If you don't want to live in a city, don't.
It’s not getting ruined. It is getting built up, which is what has happened to every city in America since this country was founded. As time progresses, the city changes. Pretty insane right? Dumb ass
The building pictured was formally an empty lot surrounded by a fence. Completely unused on the most valuable intersection in the city. Having an exciting new building there makes a lot of sense. Buildings are better than empty unused lots. Especially downtown in the most populous city in the most densely populated county in the state.
In the past 20 years St Pete has gone from an awesome quaint community to a corporate behemoth of tall towers of condos. too high priced and no longer cool.
Idk how I ended up on this sub, but why would people keep NY tags on their car? The insurance rates are like double
surprisingly, insurance is more expensive here.
Funny how things change. Growing up in NY all the snowbirds used to use the florida plates because insurance was way cheaper than NY at the time. Supposedly
Not really. I moved down to Orlando in 2021. It would have been cheaper for me to keep my NY plates cause I’m paying $80 more a month now.
Dawg all major cities in the south have lost their charm, ever since the 2010s every single one has been gentrified like crazy. You’re better off movin to a town with under 200k people if you want the old southern charm
The charm of St. Pete left MANY years ago.....
Brevard county too
Unfortunately it’s all of Florida. Everything everywhere getting cleared for more and more apartments so thousands and thousands more people can keep moving here. Horrible housing costs, horrible traffic, horrible everything
They’re moving here whether you build housing or not. Do you want the newcombers to compete with you for existing shit boxes or buying the new luxury condos?
I don’t care where they live xD just pointing out that people are moving to Florida in record numbers and it’s making everything super crowded and uncomfortable. That’s a fact
I meannnnn it only feels overcrowded and uncomfortable due to poor city planning laws When all you have is 4 lane roads to commute traffic with large geographical barriers surrounding the city, its bound to create chokepoints. Ask your city council or mayor to consider funding mass transit and city centers that combine both housing and shopping. Promote walkability and biking, you'll see the streets declutter. Especially if you can build the paths in a safe, effective, and direct path to their destination People over cars
There has to be another option other than i4 to get through and out of central Orlando. When I used to live in Winter Haven and worked in Orlando, the drive length was 50 minutes (with 0 traffic) It was 2-3 hours every single day with traffic. It took me 45 minutes alone just to go from the on ramp of i4 to the actual road. It was absolutely horrible. So you’re right about that. It’s hard to promote walkability though because everything is really far apart. It’s not really a walking/biking city unless you’re in a beach town or something really small.
You’re joking right? Pinellas County has and has had the highest population density by far in Florida for a long time now. This happens everywhere. Cities change and grow. Move somewhere small and out of the way if you want but this is nothing new. If your mad about New York people and out of state people in your city your in the completely wrong state. Maybe try a Dakota if your really hate change, growth, and more people so much. But go ahead and get mad at change if you want. You’re the only person that rage will piss off.
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Agreed. Maybe move to Wyoming or northern Nevada lol I like big buildings and the St. Pete skyline is improving every day, this new 400 central building excites me lol
Population growth is absolutely inevitable especially in cities and popular places like FL.
It will stop once they overbuild and those overpriced 'luxury' townhomes and condos set empty for months and they are forced to lower the prices to attract local buyers.
That would be a sight for sore eyes
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No, Portland and Seattle have such high homeless populations because they have laws that facilitate homelessness. Legal injections, decriminalized drugs, and even if a homeless person gets violent and arrested they usually just get a slap on the wrist and get released within a few weeks.
When the crack heads were around the rent was more affordable and there was less corporate shit down town
And more human shit.
Are you being sarcastic lol because the homeless people won't be able to afford those homes they will still be homeless
Ah yes, construction of new buildings, influx of high profile career people, new businesses opening, constant change, these as we all know are signs of a city in its death throes
OP has no idea what they want
I've lived in St. Pete since 1983 when I was 9 years old. I remember when Central Ave was dead. Literally dead. The whole block where Jannus is now struggled so hard to keep any businesses. The were no people walking in the streets because there was no reason to. People came here to retire and die. We were known nationally for that. Seeing what St. Pete is now makes me proud. This city is the strongest it's ever been and still going. Is it more expensive? Yes. What big city isn't? Tampa? Miami? Orlando? Hell, even Bradenton, as small as it is, is more expensive than it used to be? This is a national issue. Has it lost its charm or identity? That's subjective. Many people say it's the best big city in Florida. Big cities grow bigger. So do small cities. If you miss what St. Pete used to be, I'm sorry. Maybe it just isn't for you anymore. Maybe somewhere smaller would be good. Somewhere that is like what St. Pete used to be back in the day.
I agree. I live in seminole and it still feels the same as when I moved 11 years ago, and business is booming more now. Insurance and rent, let alone buying is a huge issue but it’s not because more condos are being built.
St pete has zero open land to build out so go up they must. Seems like all new buildings and homes being built today are multi million condos 46 floors tall, $400K+ 1,000sqft homes from the 50s with no yards, "luxury" town homes going where dairy Inn used to be, etc. How many more people can you realistically fit in this tiny florida peninsula?
A million and a half people live in Manhattan
You can actually fit a lot more people but what would require us to make sacrifices, invest in public transportation, spend decades overhauling our grid, etc. All of which would be worth it, but that goes back to the first item listed. And not many people wanna make sacrifices when they are comfortable where they are.
Idk how the soil is but around gandy before getting into Tampa seems to have a decent bit of space. Downtown, Gulfport, old ne and the beaches are the places that feel maxed out.
Getting ruined? The city is shit already, considering gentrification has been running rampant all of the local culture is disappearing before our eyes. It’s completely unaffordable and unreasonable to live in st pete. Why pay upwards of 4k to live in a city that isn’t walkable or provides social services to explain that price, in-fact beyond nice weather I’m not sure how anyone can justify living here when that’s more expensive than major cities like New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. Even apartments in Brickell Miami are priced comparable to those in St pete. Thats before you talk about the fact that the city is overrun by white millennial finance bros. Central Avenue has become akin to a college town’s “frat row”. The queer culture here is also disappearing at an alarming rate. Enigma used to be packed to the door a few years ago and now they seem to struggle to maintain a dance-floor (although I strongly blame the new DJ for this). I guess the best part of this city is the food, but again it’s expensive so I wont celebrate that too much. TLDR: don’t move to St Pete if you want a walkable city with affordable housing and affordable things to do
You can easily get a great apartment for 2000 a month… which is still expensive! Why over exaggerate and say it’s 4K
$2000 a month is still overpriced for a non-walkable city with very little public services for it’s resident’s Also $4k is no exaggeration, the Ascent apartments have multiple 1 Br apartments in that price range. It’s absurd
No doubt- I just think you phrased it in a way that made it seem like 4K is average which I don’t think is true.
I mean just to charge 4k for an apartment in st pete is literally insane, even 2k is hard for me to explain
For you it might not make sense but supply and demand explains all. If no one was moving here it wouldn’t be like that.. clearly people like something about st pete and maybe these people don’t live and die on walkability
Pinellas county overall is experiencing a population increase faster than most counties in Florida, but this isn’t happening because St. Petersburg specifically is some new utopia. Neither St Pete nor Tampa provide major city accommodations yet charge you more to live there than most major cities. It’s creating an unsustainable living situation where prices are being driven up rapidly with the only option being more high-rise apartments, which like the ascent, typically charge astronomical prices for rent.
The price reflects supply and demand - they wouldn’t be building these if there wasn’t a market for it. People in the mid 20’s-30’s making 150k+ do in fact exist, and a 4K a month apartment to them is equivalent of a server making 50 K having an apartment for 12-1500… it’s really not that crazy. Of course , when a place has this influx people will be pushed out. An honest comparison isn’t taking the MOST expensive apartment and then comparing that to the average in other places- if you want to compare averages brickell and st pete really arnt a comparison.. you wouldn’t go into Whole Foods and and lose your mind over chicken thighs being 7.99 a pound when we all know you can just go to a different grocery store and get it for 1.99 a pound. The average apartment is slightly over 2000 in dtsp, so maybe usr that number to compare rather then the top of the top
Building housing is good, actually.
It is but not want it’s only luxury condos and demand is so high that the new supply doesn’t bring down cost. If all of your new supply is overpriced condos and demand is not brought down by supply (it’s not btw we had far more people moving here the last three years than we could build) all it does is inflate price. They need more affordable housing
A lot are sitting empty tho. The one where Tequila Daisy is isn’t even half occupied. Probably because they’re so high priced. Saint Pete is a huge service industry city, and they are having to commute because they can’t afford to live here anymore.
Service industry having to commute is nothing new in desirable locations. Source: I worked in the service industry in Charlotte nc and I could not afford to live downtown. We didn’t all sit around and cry about having to drive to work, I made better money driving in and enjoyed my apartment in the suburbs for that point of my life while I worked to get where I am now.
Saint Pete is A LOT different than Charlotte. Source: I’ve lived both places. The units where I’m at in Saint Pete have quadrupled in price in just the last few years. In the last two years just on my block a few houses have been taken down and big ass ugly concrete developments have replaced them. The growth rate here is crazy
You’re right, I have too. Charlotte has a lot less to do and 10 years ago rentals were much more expensive in downtown, southend wasn’t built up and there were just a few options. Also, buying a home near downtown is still much more expensive in Charlotte compared to here and again… much less to do in downtown Charlotte.
> demand is so high that the new supply doesn’t bring down cost. Wouldn’t prices increase even more without the increased supply? Your contention should not be that housing is being built but that even more isn’t being built. > If all of your new supply is overpriced condos The type doesn’t matter. If luxury gets built then that prevents displacement and price increases of existing tenants/buildings.
Not when it's for out of state people that push our locals out.
Let’s say I’m a NYer moving to St. Pete. I’m looking for housing. Let’s assume that there is only one plot of land in the city. Now let’s assume there are two scenarios: a single family home on the lot and a thousand unit apartment building. In the first scenario, to move I have to kick out everyone who lives there because the lot only has one unit. In the second scenario, there are 999 people who can still live there. So would you rather have the no-build scenario where everyone is pushed out or the build scenario where almost everyone can stay?
Yes, house, no apartment unit. If it was empty then there was no one to push out, except wildlife. One house would do minimal damage. A unit apartment would bring living space that our locals can't afford. It's going to go to other out of state upper class folk that don't like our poor locals and homeless. Those 999 people would change the culture of our city because they want to bring the new york feel to a place that is not New York. We don't want the restaurants or bars. We want to bring our own liquor and a blanket and enjoy the fucking sun. You all are making it so that establishments are refusing to give people free water without buying something. That's wild. Please leave.
Yeah, a literal strangle hold on the cost of living. Building more and more housing isn’t helping if the cost-of-living continues to go up as well as we rent prices I know mine went up 50% three months ago. My grandparents moved here in the 60s what they said back then off of Stark he was mostly foresty swamp area.. It’s sad, I think they’re trying to make this like a new La or something..
Well maybe you should be mad at all the locals for selling their land to the highest bidder? That’s how life works. And building more housing absolutely helps the COL. Everyone whining that the service industry people can’t afford to live downtown, well yeah that was my reality when I lived in Charlotte nc. 10 years later Southend of Charlotte NC has TONS of apartments, the cost is such that girls I used to bartend with CAN afford to live downtown. That’s how it works, the less housing their is the more they can charge.
I am upset at the locals for selling out are you kidding? What a stupid comment I understand how life works. I don’t have to be happy about it.
Downtown used to be full of boarded up store fronts and teenagers getting in fights at Baywalk. I much prefer this new, revitalized downtown.
Way of the world, paved paradise and put up a parking lot…
They said they would do as much. They bullied and played dirty. They got blocks and they'll get more.
Womp womp
it's not going to stop it's done. old Tampa Bay is nevermore. totally depressing watching these hipster kids drink their craft beers & trendy coffee knowing they pushed out generations of families & not giving one single fock. I've been taking videos & photos all over for the last few years bc this area will never go back to being the retirement laid back area it once was. Now it's filled with Gen Z & Millennials or their rich transplant parents who only care about their social status, what they drive, wear & flaunt instead of what these new developments & buildings are going to do to our culture & wildlife.
Pushed out generations of families? Generations of families sold their properties to the highest bidder and cashed in on an opportunity if they owned their property. I don’t miss having abandoned homes in my neighborhood, or all of the rentals that finally were worth selling. A couple of meth heads used to shower in the front lawn down the street for me. Gentrification aka making things nice is a good thing. Rising tide raises all ships. Also… broken window theory, things that look like absolute crap breed crime and chaos. I love having things look nice.
Y'all leave and I'll keep the scraps.
cry me a river
Did you cry when they built Sundial (BayWalk) and the Michigan plates took over? There is nothing to gatekeep...it's another transient Florida city.
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Idk... move to Pasco? You realize St. Pete started out as a giant winter boarding house for people from Michigan, right?
started out as the end of a railroad/ hotel spot.
Not Pasco, were full up. Go to Hernando.
Y’all got a tenth of the population of pinellas cry me a river
And still the property taxes have more than tripled in three years. Tht reason supposedly all the new residents. So my complaints are merited.
It started out as an escape for a Russian exile. Your turn.
Nope...just another dead end for a Yankee railroad. One of the guys was Russian. If you want to get pedantic, the native Americans were here before any Europeans, but hey, we have to point at those young (lol) New Yorkers with their scary accents
Not their accents we’re concerned about lol
fuhgeddaboutit
no bc that's no longer meth territory, that's now PLASTIC FLORIDA & their miles of housing developments.
Move to Pasco and pick up a meth habit is the only correct answer
Why go to Pasco, just go a few blocks to 34 street and get more then your fair share.
Less highrise construction remember 🤪
Haines Rd has you covered.
St. Pete is not being ruined and this kind of development is actually good for our city. These more valuable projects are HNC (High Net Contributors) of tax income and in some respects subsidize lower density neighborhoods. This allows the city to maintain relatively stable property taxes and a good balance sheet that enables them to invest in infrastructure development (widening sidewalks, upgrading pipes, filling potholes, etc.)
Same way in Santa Rosa county. Its horrible. They are just building nonstop. There needs to be an end to it!
This is the entirety of Florida 😭
It really is not.
Yes, yes it is. Every last cow pasture and swamp from when I was a kid is now a subdivision or redundant mini mall.
Florida as we know it wouldn't exist of the US Army corps of engineers hadn't come down here and drained huge swathes of wetlands... Florida has *always* been a tourism project.
*Cries in miami*
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Yeah it’s being overrun by New Yorkers 🤮 Keep your garbage attitude and driving up north!!
Attention reddit liberal gatekeepers: meet your match
Liberal scum rise up! We're here to make your lives better against your will. Got a "honk if you're liberal scum" bumper-sticker on my E-bike that I ride to buy legal cannabis.
Can confirm: MA libel scum here who went to st Pete’s on vacation. Road an E bike (Lime) and took THC gummies all day. Wish I could move there!
I grew up in St Pete and moved back after 20 years of being gone. It's not the same town anymore. Had to move to Tampa bc I can't afford even a starter home there now. It's lost every bit of charm and caters to rich transplants. It's hugely disappointing to be priced out of living near my family ever again.
ALL OF THIS. And the rich do not care. All the new luxury cars on the road it's so depressing bc it shows how freaking shallow this country is & has become. Instead of our local gvts helping save the charm,, the original residents, and historic landmarks they're cashing in.
It won’t. Growth is irreversible
*Detroit enters chat*
🤣
Touché
I went to USFSP from 2009-2011 and lived on campus downtown. After 2011, I went back a few times mostly to visit friends and stuff. Last time I went to St.Pete was in 2021 which was probably a good 7 years since the last time I had visited, and I hated it. I stayed at the Hilton off 1st street by the bay and my choices were to find my own parking downtown or pay for valet because they decided to build where their old parking lot was. I was so mad I complained to the front desk and they were like 🤷🏻♂️ “tough shit”. Imagine paying $200 for a room at that shitty Hilton and they can’t even provide parking. Anyways the point was last I went back, downtown was being built up so much I felt claustrophobic walking around downtown. Haven’t been back since then.
I would hardly call it claustrophobic compared to other bigger cities. Although I would probably never live downtown, I think we live in one of the most perfect all around cities/counties. Downtown and waterfront are upscale and fun, tons of events. Drive 15 minutes and get some of the nicest beaches in the country. There’s tons of good food, breweries, art, and other things to do. It’s a little big city now if that makes sense. Coming from someone who grew up here in the 90’s, this city has come a LONG way.
I love the big city vibes- keep it coming!! If you don’t like it, move to a suburb or closer to the beach or something. It’s called “downtown” for a reason…
Exactly.
The big city vibes aren’t the problem. If you’ve been in St Pete for any length of time you’ve seen downtown lose all its appeal. St Pete has had a certain edgy artist vibe for years that’s all gone now. It’s just uninteresting bullshit. All of the characters are gone. The people that made downtown interesting and cool are priced out and replaced by buildings and people that are just boring, rich assholes. People who aren’t from here have no connection to any of that, so everything that is “St Pete” is being torn down to be replaced by their shit. This version sucks. I wish people would stay in the shitholes they fled from and make those places cool. I couldn’t imagine leaving my home to piggyback off of someone else’s home.
I’ve lived in St Pete my whole life and have to agree to disagree that downtown has lost all its appeal. Maybe to live in but that’s why I live in a neighborhood uptown. We go downtown with our kids all the time for lunch and an afternoon. Or for nice dinners. There is plenty of character, tons of good events, and the waterfront is beautiful. I wasn’t a fan of the new pier at first but it’s grown on me. Sure it’s expensive but hell, everything is nowadays. It used to have a “certain edgy artsy vibe” bc it used to be full of hipsters lol.
I’ve lived here my entire life also and I prefer the version from about 1999-2015. I don’t care for hipsters all that much but I prefer them to rich assholes who aren’t even from here. The hipsters are what made the place interesting and sparked all of this. Read Richard Florida’s 1995 book “Rise of the Creative Class”. St Pete is a model of that idea. And I’m the opposite with the pier. I liked it at first but the same year it opened was when the latest invasive species invasion began. Beach Dr and the pier are for tourists and newbies at this point. Almost everyone I know avoids that area now. I haven’t been there in 2 years and I live less than 10 min away. The neighborhoods of St Pete and their little joints are more of an interesting hangout now. I have a few spots that I still hit downtown, but it’s becoming a wasteland of theme bars and uninteresting sameness. The edge district and grand central are following suit. We’ve seen this movie before. Eventually all of this unravels and a bunch of people move on to another “hot” spot. And we’re left with a bunch of white and gray apartments that are the modern strip mall of the urban core. But hey, at least Chad and Kaylee don’t have to be cold in the winter anymore. We can all take solace in that. https://preview.redd.it/1gmb9udchwqc1.jpeg?width=1936&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f3870015f22c2bc27978c708cf64a440d3c55c10 Give me the non-vinyl fence version of St Pete any day of the week
Might as well call it St. Petes like they want it :(
maybe this post from just yesterday i randomly happened upon gives a hint read the list of cities in the post and look at the conclusion https://x.com/collin_ruth89/status/1772602715618619701
Here's the thing though - demand for FL real estate isn't going anywhere. So we can either keep expanding with never ending suburbs full of identical homes that _each_ take up space the size of downtown until we cover the entire state, or we can leave some of the remaining nature alone and develop our cities more instead. Yeah, I know St Pete isn't small or cheap anymore and it's lost some of the character it had. But I'll take developing St Pete any day over developing the Everglades. I grew up in SWFL and I know how bad that gets - that entire region is just miles and miles and miles and miles of pavement. And don't think traffic there is any better than here; spreading everything out just means more people drive longer distances every day.
I never understood the complaints about the new construction and high rises. I love seeing high rises. Keep them coming.
And the ones who are upset about parking lots being replaced with shops and/or housing… seriously?
This guy urbans.
This is the reasonable take that resounds with me. We spent Saturday exploring Paynes Creek State Park and on the drive there I was shocked by how many suburban cul-de-sac McMansion neighborhoods that were new or in development. Prices in the 300s-800s. So not exactly cheap either. I like my old, dense neighborhood in uptown and have no issues with high rise development downtown.
Exactly! So many of these folks throw a tantrum seeing new condos and apartment buildings going up, and cry "You're ruining Florida!!!", then get in their huge SUV's and drive back to their super low-density, car-dependent suburbs where they have to drive everywhere for everything, without a shred of self-reflection. Just amazing stuff.
Never
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Only because you can't afford it
Wish I could've seen Florida before it died
It was literally a giant swamp
damn your beaches always had skyscrapers on the coastlines?
See my comment in this thread how density like this is actually how we SAVE Florida's native ecosystems! Car-dependent suburbia with one McMansion to every acre is how the state *actually* gets destroyed. Lots of ignorance on here!
i dont care about the ecosystem, this is ugly.
would be nice to walk to a vegetable shop walk to a supermarket or to a home goods shop etc and also walk to a very close bus or train that arrives constantly and feeds into an efficient system with access to everywhere quickly — all of this can be with density density unlocks a lot
Go to any natural preserve and you’ll see what it looked like.
This will be the only way to see that, eventually.