New owners of Sundial in downtown St. Pete have their eyes on national retailers
By Breanne Williams
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Apr 8, 2022

The new owners of St. Petersburg's Sundial are moving forward with a redevelopment that will bring national retailers to the property, overhaul its courtyard — and potentially include the movie theater next door.

Paradise Ventures and Tampa real estate investor Andrew Wright acquired the Sundial in February and have spent the past two months crafting a plan to transform the open-air lifestyle center. Their ambitions have an aggressive timeline: Paradise president and CEO Mike Connor told the Tampa Bay Business Journal that they'd like to hold a grand reopening on Feb. 22, 2023, exactly one year after they closed on the property.

Connor said the team is in serious conversations with multiple retail tenants — many of which are national operators — and are working on a complete redesign of the property's courtyard. They’re also in talks with a boutique fitness studio that he said will be in high demand from the surrounding community.

They also plan to market the property to retailers at ICSC's national convention in Las Vegas in May. ICSC, formerly known as the International Council of Shopping Centers, is a trade group of retail real estate professionals.

Connor said they have tapped Behar + Peteranecz to design the courtyard and plan to do some major renovations to the open area, including lowering the entire floor two feet to make it “more walkable from the sidewalk” and add “meeting spaces.” The preliminary design will include the entire courtyard as well as the walkway to the AMC Sundial 12.

The movie theater — which is not included in the Sundial property — was part of a portfolio acquired by the Carlyle Group this year. Connor said he has reached out to Carlyle with an offer for the site should they be interested in selling.

“I think we’re the logical buyer,” Connor said. “I’ve made them offers, but anyone can buy it and it will be great to see something happen there.”

Connor said if they were to purchase the AMC — which would essentially double the size of the property — it wouldn’t change the current plan for the Sundial but would act instead as an addition. He said there are a lot of retailers that are “just physically bigger” than they can fit in the Sundial and said it would be amazing to have the option to “lease out 40,000 or 60,000 square feet” to a tenant.

“Once we fill up this and it becomes a destination, you’re going to see across the street change and down the street change,” Connor said. “This is a walkable area. I think you’re going to see — with the pier just a few blocks away and Grand Central just a few blocks away — this is going to build such a great relationship in making it feel like one large walkable area.”

Connor said Tampa's urban neighborhoods are “fractionalized,” and while there are small cores like Hyde Park or the Riverwalk that are walkable much of the city is mainly accessible through commuting. St. Pete stands out, and that’s part of what he believes is drawing the interest of major players that are seeking to lease space in the center.

The retailers know Connor and his team are not rushing their selections, and he said their focus on intentionality has been front and center as they search for who they want to fill the vacancies — which encompass approximately half of the Sundial. He said they’re dealing with national tenants from major cities like Miami, Orlando, Dallas and New York.

With the influx of condos coming within half a mile of the site — The Art House St. Petersburg, The Nolen, The Residences at 400 Central — Connor said it’s the perfect time to breathe some new life into the lifestyle center.

“I’m excited about it. I’m just impatient, so I wish we can do stuff faster, but we’re not going to do that,” Connor said. “It’s picking the right mix; it’s very important we pick the right mix. This isn’t a strip center; this is an important location. It needs to be done the correct way. I think the beauty of it is that once we get this thing back on track, I think you’ll see more retailers orbit."

When asked if he’s considered the value of at some point down the road using the Sundial property as a redevelopment site, Connor said retail was their focus.

"We don’t do condos," he said. "We do this.”