A version of Pat Benatar’s “Love Is A Battlefield” is blasting throughout the Mediterranean revival-style complex known as BayWalk. It’s 8:30 Monday night, and the place is buzzing. Couples walk hand in hand, some slightly dressed up. A woman snaps shots of seven kids posing playfully on the main stairway. Teens travel in chunks of no less than three. And after each song, the small karaoke audience upstairs cheers.
“It’s the place to see and be seen,” said Greg Sembler, co-owner of the development company that owns BayWalk.
Outside the bright lights and loud music of the complex, it’s a virtual ghost town.
The one-block entertainment, dining and retail complex opened in November 2000. It’s bounded by Second and Third avenues North and First and Second streets. A $40 million mark of downtown development, BayWalk stands among the many new projects such as the McNulty and Bayway Lofts, Publix, and Barnes and Noble, the latter two set to open this fall.
For the Sembler Co., the 3 million people who come each year doesn’t live up to initial predictions of 4 million a year. Still, Sembler and BayWalk’s general manager Katy Hoyt said its popularity has surpassed their expectations. While developers from the Sembler Co. in 2000 had hoped to get about 40 percent of their business from tourists, they now get 28 percent business from tourists and 72 percent from residents.
“I was a little nervous about downtown St. Petersburg and the acceptance of the project,” Sembler said. “But it’s been overwhelmingly positive and seems to fit into the fabric of downtown well and done everything that we’d hoped it would, picking up tourism and increasing business.”
This series focuses on three areas of downtown: BayWalk, what many consider the center of a revitalized St. Petersburg; Williams Park, BayWalk’s neighbor, polar opposite and the center of the city’s growing homeless population; and a coffee shop in the 900 block of Central Avenue, a place that hasn’t mirrored the economic growth closer to Tampa Bay.
The three areas offer potential visions of downtown’s future. It might be poised now for an infusion of wealth, an upheaval among lower-income residents and local business owners, or a continued tension between old and new.
BayWalk’s total increased taxes, fees and income revenues to the city are estimated to be $973,000 annually, according to a report sent from Lindsey Ballas, economic development specialist for city of St. Petersburg.
But several local restaurant owners say BayWalk has not fulfilled expectations of increased business. Since the opening of BayWalk, business in restaurants outside BayWalk has gone down, said Anthony Dabrowski, owner of Gold’s Coffee Shop on First Avenue North, and the owner of South Gate on Third Street North, who declined to give his name.
Lynne Alexander, owner of the boutique Heavenly Things on First Avenue North, says that BayWalk has been a “double-edged sword” for her. While her location near Starbucks has brought her more customers, she worries about her rent going up when her lease comes up in four years. The owner of South Gate also says his rent is very expensive, although neither would say how much they paid for rent.
City officials said BayWalk would bring more people into downtown, Dabrowski said, but it only brought people into BayWalk. He said there’s been less foot traffic downtown since BayWalk opened.
Generally, locals agree that BayWalk is hurting local restaurants but not many retailers. But Tim Clemmons, an architect and historical preservationist, said there’s more competition overall, including restaurants in downtown outside of BayWalk. Mimi Peterson, owner of the retail store Star Booty on Central Avenue, said it has not affected her business at all. After seven years, she said she’s found a comfortable niche.
Many said that the design of BayWalk, an enclosed structure surrounded by high walls, is to blame for the decrease in foot traffic. The city built a 1,380 space parking garage for the complex, which charges 50 cents every hour and is less than a block away from BayWalk shops.
“(People) come in cars, and they leave in cars,” Dabrowski said.
Clemmons, who said BayWalk is generally good for downtown, also said the design is “too inwardly focused.”
“One of the things you want when you have something that’s an activity generator for downtown is to open it in a way that opens up people to go to downtown,” he said. But Clemmons acknowledged that some stores like Ann Taylor faces out.
Sembler said the inward design was created in order to facilitate activity in the inner courtyard, which he calls “the dance floor.”
The inner courtyard, which is surrounded by the Muvico Theater on one side and the grand staircase leading up to Wet Willie’s Daquiri Bar on the other, gives the person a view of most of the BayWalk shops.
On Monday night, the inner courtyard is the center of activity. It’s where a group of teen-agers sit and wait for their movie times. It’s where a group of six senior citizens stand around and discuss whether or not to eat ice cream at Ben & Jerry’s that night. And it’s where people standing at the balconies look over.
Sembler said much of the design was modeled after the CocoWalk in Miami. “Hence, BayWalk,” he said.
Despite Clemmons’ critique of BayWalk’s design, he also said he’d rather have his 15-year-old daughter Alexa hang out at BayWalk than at the Tyrone Mall.
“It’s more interesting and stimulating in downtown,” he said.
Alexa and her friends are starting to branch out of BayWalk, Clemmons said. They’re spending time in places like the Globe Coffee Lounge and Jannus Landing, the oldest outdoor concert venue in Florida. Both places are outside of BayWalk on First Avenue North.
The rift between locals and tourists has been another bone of contention among local business owners and BayWalk. John Meeks, a waiter at South Gate, said he disagrees with the city’s dependence on tourism for revenue. Several local business owners said the city should have taken the $10,500 put into BayWalk and used it to help strengthen local businesses and clean up the streets.
“In the long run, it would’ve been a greater impact because people would’ve come for the uniqueness,” Alexander said. “The thing that made this community unique was its boutiques, its quaintness.”
The owner and a regular customer of South Gate said the city is serving tourists instead of residents. But BayWalk General Manager Katy Hoyt said 72 percent of BayWalk patrons are locals.
Clemmons, however, questioned the term “tourist.”
“In a lot of ways for downtown St. Pete, the most important tourists are the ones that live just 10, 15 miles away,” Clemmons said. “In the 1970s, 1980s, people who lived 10 miles away never came to St. Pete. ... Now they come to downtown on a regular basis.”
The variety of shops and restaurants in BayWalk have forced many of the surrounding small businesses to compete with the highly popular shopping center. The hundreds of thousands of dollars BayWalk puts into advertising can’t compare with the limited advertising of small independent businesses, Clemmons said.
But Sembler said the small businesses should adjust to the change.
“Maybe they need to look at their product mix and selection and try to build off the positive cause that we’re bringing in a lot more people here,” Sembler said.
Still, the developing downtown has some locals worried that the big corporations and high-priced condos will push the working class out and bring in a wealthier group of people. Emanuel Matalon, owner of the CD store Daddy Kool, said he doesn’t see people who can afford $300,000 condos patronizing his place.
“It’s important to have a mix,” Clemmons said. “But it can go too far. I think we need to be careful about that. If it gets too expensive, then the working class people, people who hold jobs in downtown, won’t be able to live there.”
Clemmons believes that there’s a better mix of people living in downtown than there was 10 years ago. “The trick now is that it doesn’t become all 53-year-old wealthy people.”