St. Petersburg-based travel insurance company Squaremouth has sold its HQ building, which encompasses an entire city block on Central Avenue.
Squaremouth Inc. sold the property to Delaware-based Azzam Properties Corp. several weeks ago in a $1.86 million deal. The property was initially listed for $3.9 million.
Squaremouth purchased the property at 4355 Central Ave. in 2017 for $1.4 million to build its headquarters. Squaremouth was going to bring a Silicon Valley-inspired design to the property with building treehouses connected by rope bridges, with climbing walls and fire poles as entrance and exit points on the property. There were plans to also convert the historic “old sanctuary” into a public coffee shop and co-working space, the St. Pete Catalyst previously reported.
“New sanctuary” where Squaremouth employees worked for a short time.
However, the workplace culture changed especially during the pandemic – causing the need for existing and additional office space to be scraped.
“We transitioned to a fully remote workforce last March at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, and have found success in doing so. We are remaining remote for the foreseeable future and have no need for the office spaces,” a spokeswoman for Squaremouth told the St. Pete Catalyst.
Additionally, the group is not renewing its lease at the downtown St. Pete location in the Northern Trust building, at 100 2nd Ave. S. Squaremouth played a key part in garnering interest in the downtown St. Petersburg scene when it took over the penthouse of the former City Center in 2012.
