People want to live in St. Petersburg.
That’s why Mayor Rick Kriseman and other community leaders celebrated the groundbreaking Tuesday of 334, a 24-story residential tower with 220 upscale apartments being built at 334 2nd Ave. S.
It’s one of several projects underway downtown and throughout the city, where moderate estimates project a gain of 24,000 people by the year 2050 and a need for 1,000 more housing units each year between now and then.
“St. Petersburg cannot continue to grow, to attract company expansions and relocations, unless we have sufficient housing for the folks working for the companies we are recruiting. Until such time as the supply of housing exceeds the demand for housing, housing prices are going to continue to rise. That’s why projects like this are so important,” Kriseman said. “We are a community surrounded by water with limited land available, so if we’re going to continue to grow, to add housing opportunities, we’re going to have to embrace density. We can’t single family our way out of our housing challenges. That’s why today the downtown skyline looks a lot different today than it did when I first took office in 2014. With our need for density , the downtown skyline will continue to grow and change and this project is a big part of that change.”
