That nickname — Suitcase City — it’s got to go.
Two student-oriented housing projects near USF should help in the effort to rebrand a part of north Tampa regarded as depressed and at times dangerous.
By far the more grandiose is a new building slated for just south of the James A. Haley Veterans Hospital. Gainesville-based The Collier Companies, one of the top student-housing operators in the United States, recently closed on the 100-unit Sunset Square Apartments for $6.4 million. They plan to tear it down starting in the fall, then build a state-of-the-art residential facility with an expected completion in 2016.
Robert Goldfinger, managing director at Franklin Street Real Estate Services, represented both the buy and the seller, Sunset Square Blackhawk Realty Advisors, the transaction.
Collier Companies CEO Andy Hogshead said design specifics are nowhere near complete. He ballparked the project’s cost at north of $40 million. But he did provide a general outline of the facility.
It will likely include more than 180 apartment units ranging from one-bedroom/one-bath to four-bedroom/four-bath. The housing category is known as rent-by-the-bed. “We’re going to deliver a luxurious, furnished product and do it at a price point people can afford,” Hogshead said. “Say three nurses or students rent a unit together — each one is responsible for his or her piece of the lease. They don’t cosign with everyone else. That provides a lot of flexibility.”
Hogshead said his new project does not yet have a name, but there’s a good chance it will include the word “Icon.” When completed, it should provide roughly 600 bedrooms where residents share common areas.
Around the corner, a more modest, but no less viable, project is underway. Developer Elvis Ramone has transformed his Silver Palms apartments — which he says at one point could’ve fit the notion of Suitcase City living — into Campus Palms, a 232-unit student housing community.
Ramone estimates that he spent close to $4 million on upgrades, including vastly enhanced security. In its previous life, Campus Palms housed perhaps five percent students, he said, but that number is seeing a major upswing. He, too, is offering by-the-bed leases for students.
“We haven’t had issues getting new renters,” he said. “Students will start to move in Aug. 1 and we’re getting a lot of beds ready.” Download PDF
