Tampa Bay
St. Petersburg
industrial.
A peninsula that ran out of industrial land thirty years ago and never replaced what it lost.
Asset class and buyer list / Tampa and the Bay
Pinellas is the most densely populated county in Florida and it is bounded by water on three sides. There is no western expansion, no southern expansion and no meaningful supply of new industrial land. What industrial exists in St. Petersburg was built decades ago, and every year some of it is converted to residential or self-storage.
Against that, the demand is entirely local and entirely durable: contractors, marine trades, medical device manufacturers, distributors and service businesses supplying a million people who are not moving. Supply shrinks, demand does not, and small bay here behaves accordingly.
Where the industrial actually is in St. Petersburg
- The Gateway areaBetween St. Pete and Clearwater on the I-275 corridor. The county’s main modern industrial pocket.
- 28th Street NorthThe older industrial spine through the middle of the city.
- Lealman and unincorporatedDense small bay and service product, and the last affordable stock.
- Downtown and the portThe Port of St. Petersburg, marine trades and conversion pressure.
- Pinellas ParkThe largest concentration of industrial on the peninsula, north of the city.
- Albert Whitted and the waterfrontGeneral aviation and marine industrial on the bay.
The infrastructure
What sets value here
Industrial value is access. Everything a buyer pays for in St. Petersburg is downstream of these six things.
- I-275The spine, north to Tampa over the bay and south over the Skyway to Manatee.
- US-19The Pinellas north-south corridor, and the route the trades actually drive.
- The SkywayThe Manatee connection, which puts Port Manatee inside forty minutes.
- Gandy and Howard FranklandThe bay crossings into Tampa and the airport.
- Port of St. PetersburgA working small port with marine industrial around it.
- Albert WhittedDowntown general aviation, on the waterfront.
What we sell in St. Petersburg
Six asset classes, and nothing else
- Small bay and flex. The market. Roughly 1,200 to 15,000 SF, tight everywhere, and losing stock to conversion every year.
- Warehouse. Older grade-level product, with modern space concentrated in the Gateway.
- Industrial outdoor storage. Genuinely scarce on the peninsula, which is what makes the sites that exist valuable.
- RV and boat storage. Boat and RV storage against a very dense boating population and almost no land.
- Industrial land. Effectively none. Anything zoned industrial is being valued against what else could go there.
- Truck parking and terminals. Constrained by land, and mostly pushed north or across the bay.
How we work outside the tri-county
Phil is straight about this, because a broker who claims every market is telling you something about himself. Inside Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach he is a local market expert and he walks the sites. Outside the tri-county, what you are hiring is the asset class and the buyer list.
On IOS, truck parking, RV and boat storage and small bay, the buyer pool is national and it does not care which county you are in. That pool, and the way this product is actually priced, is what we bring to St. Petersburg.
What he will never do is describe asset-class depth as though it were a closing on your street. See what the firm has actually closed.
Straight answers
Questions owners actually ask
Increasingly often, yes, and it is worth knowing before you go to market. Pinellas has almost no developable land left, so residential and self-storage developers compete directly for older industrial parcels. An industrial buyer prices your building and rent roll; a developer prices your land and entitlements. We run it both ways and show you the gap.
Because the supply is shrinking, not just flat. Pinellas cannot create new industrial land, and existing industrial keeps being converted to uses that outbid it. Meanwhile a million residents keep generating contractors, trades and service businesses that need 2,000 to 8,000 square feet. That gap is what an owner of this product holds.
Yes. Clearwater, Largo, Oldsmar and Pinellas Park are the same county and a different market in character. See the Clearwater page.
Before you list in St. Petersburg
Read these before you sign a listing agreement.
How to sell a warehouse in Fort Lauderdale
The seven steps in the order they happen, what sets the price, and the three mistakes that cost owners the most.
What is my industrial property worth?
Why no website can price a warehouse or a truck yard, and what a real broker opinion of value contains.
How to choose an industrial broker
Nine questions to ask before you sign, and what a weak answer sounds like.
Next step
Find out what your property is worth.
A confidential broker opinion of value, at no cost and with no obligation to list. Phil sets the number himself.