Harbour Island apartment tower moving forward
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Oct 1, 2014

An apartment tower on Harbour Island appears to be moving forward. The developers pursuing the deal, under corporate entity Harbour Island Residential LLC, received a $41.5 million loan for the project from Birmingham, Ala.-based Compass Bank, according to a Hillsborough County mortgage filed Wednesday.

The 235-unit tower will be built on a site at the intersection of Knights Run Avenue and Harbour Post Drive, east of Plaza Harbour Island, a condominium tower.

Apartments remain the hottest commercial real estate sector in Tampa Bay - especially those in and near the city's urban core. About a mile from the Harbour Island site, the 23-story, 320-unit SkyHouse is under construction. An Atlanta developer is under contract to acquire the 900 block of North Franklin Street in downtown Tampa, with plans to build a 23-story apartment tower with up to 375 units, if their deal comes to fruition.

Florida Crystals, which launched a real estate division in 2013 to pursue apartment projects, has acquired a dilapidated warehouse in Channelside, with plans to raze it and build a mid-rise apartment community on the site. Construction is slated to begin in early 2015.

Collectively, the projects help build the type of residential density that Tampa's urban core needs to become a thriving, live-work-play urban neighborhood.

Ashley Gurbal Kritzer is a reporter for the Tampa Bay Business Journal.