A vacant storefront that once housed Tampa Bay’s first cat café is now the site of a 13-story, 120-unit tower in St. Petersburg’s Grand Central District, and its developer just revised the plans again — this time to add 48 affordable housing units and chase a multimillion-dollar federal grant. Tampa-based BendinRoad Development is updating its previously approved Residences at 1663 project at 1663 1st Ave. S. to qualify for financial incentives tied to affordable housing, according to Florida YIMBY.
The revision comes as BendinRoad seeks $4.8 million in federal Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery funding through the City of St. Petersburg, with city staff recommending approval ahead of a scheduled October 1 City Council vote, according to St. Pete Rising. Those disaster-recovery dollars stem from federal funds allocated to St. Petersburg following Hurricanes Idalia in 2023 and Helene in 2024, per the same outlet. BendinRoad founder Craig Bazarsky told the outlet the company deliberately delayed its original construction timeline to align with the city’s CDBG-DR grant application window, pushing groundbreaking to the first quarter of 2027.
From Cat Café to 13-Story Tower
The 0.23-acre site currently holds a vacant commercial building that once housed Sunshine Kitty Catfe, which opened in the Grand Central District in 2019 and closed in 2023, along with the law office of Dolman Law Group, the station’s report notes. Nicholas & Associates, the project’s general contractor, intends to start construction in the first quarter of 2027, per Florida YIMBY’s reporting. Bold Line Design is serving as architect, while Kimley-Horn is handling both civil engineering and landscape architecture duties.
The project has changed shape considerably since it was first pitched. As reported by St. Pete Catalyst, BendinRoad originally floated the development in June 2023 as a smaller, $25 million, eight-story car-free complex with 97 micro-apartments before redesigning it into the current 13-story tower. The building had already secured site plan approval before the developer adjusted its schedule to pursue affordable housing subsidies.
Splitting Apartments and Short-Term Rentals
Of the tower’s 120 residences, 48 will now be designated as affordable housing available to households earning at or below 80 percent of area median income — a threshold that, in Pinellas County, sits against a median family income of $104,700. The remaining units split between 60 standard apartments and 60 short-term rentals, a hybrid model the St. Petersburg Development Review Commission conditioned on requiring all standard residential apartments to carry a minimum one-year lease term, according to St. Pete Catalyst’s earlier coverage. Board members had raised concerns about unauthorized short-term vacation rentals bleeding into the residential side of the building…