You can feel the expectations rising in St. Petersburg. BayWalk, the entertainment/retail complex due to open in November, will bring a state-of-the-art movie experience and a host of new restaurants downtown. City leaders anticipate that this new venue alone will attract an additional two million people to the city's waterfront core every year.
The full-time resident count is rising, too. The Cloisters and Florencia, two new high-rise condominium towers on Beach Drive, are boosting downtown's residential component, and more is on the way, because Vinoy Place, being built just east of the Renaissance Vinoy Resort, will be occupied by families before long.
 |
|
William Stover Jr., left, chief executive officer of DataGlyphics Inc., and Hutch Craig, the firm's chief technical officer, are designing
e-commerce websites in downtown St. Petersburg.?
Photo:Timothy Healy
|
Add to that The Florida International Museum's year-round display of artifacts from the Smithsonian Institute. And factor in the educational component, with the University of South Florida Bayboro campus expanding while at the same time the university is recruiting prominent engineers to develop a MEMS (microelectronic mechanical systems) research facility on campus.
In short, downtown St. Petersburg has witnessed a revitalization totaling hundreds of millions of dollars in new construction over the past three years. It all adds to the economic base as well as the quality of life for those living, working and playing in the area. And more is still to come.
"The big factor shaping redevelopment is the USF campus and development around it," says Martin Normile, executive director of the St. Petersburg Downtown Partnership. "The USGS is bursting at the seams and the block south of the Studebaker building is dedicated for its expansion. USF is starting a four-year undergraduate program this fall and a MEMS research and development center will be included on the campus. This is a major driving force for the next wave of downtown development."
 |
|
This 30,000-square-foot building just south of Plasma-Therm Inc.'s Gateway headquarters will accommodate the firm's customer support and research and development programs.
Photo:D.J. Wilson
|
Adding to the synergy at work just south of downtown, the Albert E. Whitted Airport and Port of St. Petersburg are also preparing for increased commercial activity. Redevelopment projects are already under way or planned for the near future. And with an office vacancy rate below 10 percent since mid-1998, business executives have also discovered the advantages of operating in downtown St. Petersburg.
"A number of web-based companies are finding their way to Central Avenue," Normile says. "The reason these companies are choosing downtown St. Petersburg is because of the fiber optic infrastructure that's already in place. And it's easily accessible."
St. Petersburg's web
The list of Internet companies with a St. Petersburg address includes Net Performance Inc., Interactive Media Solutions Inc., Global Web Site Inc. and DataGlyphics Inc., which last year occupied 4,000 square feet in the recently renovated Florida Arcade building on Central Avenue. The Dell/Cisco shop, currently expanding into 5,500 square feet, provides e-commerce and database organization services for companies venturing into the worldwide web to generate revenues.
William Stover Jr. and Hutch Craig, who grew up in St. Petersburg and attended Shorecrest Preparatory School, founded DataGlyphics after taking separate paths for college and through the early stages of their careers. Although neither were Internet oriented in college, both men have always had a strong interest in it.
"We were always working on the Internet, designing websites," says Craig, the firm's chief technical officer. "We stole ideas from one another."
"We were always working on the Internet, designing websites," says Craig, the firm's chief technical officer. "We stole ideas from one another."
Immediately after college both relocated to other cities where their passion for e-commerce could be developed professionally. "I was driven to get involved in the Internet, but couldn't do it in St. Petersburg," says Stover, the firm's chief executive officer. "I went to Washington, D.C. and became the 23rd employee of Apnet, an Internet firm that now has 3,000 employees."
Craig made a similar move. "I got a job in Chicago, the Internet hub," he says. "Exodus hosts the Hotmail site. It's very big. I was the 23rd or 24th employee and they now have 7,000."
The local boys stayed in touch, however, and eventually decided to go into business together. The choice of where to locate was influenced in part by non-compete contracts preventing them from operating in Washington, D.C. or Chicago. "We wanted to come back to St. Petersburg and saw a big void in this market for high-end development," Stover says. "There are advantages to not being in the Internet meccas. Co-location costs are less here. The only difference between us and our previous employers is we can't do as many projects at the same time."
Although DataGlyphics currently has 15 employees and is adding another one or two each month, Stover and Craig agree that the firm will not grow beyond 30 employees. "By staying small we can better help our clients," Stover says. "We charge $50,000 to $250,000 for the average website development. Our old companies won't touch anything below $1 million to $2.5 million for a website. That leaves an entire area underserved. Our goal is to create robust sites for 50 to 100 good clients that continue to do business with us. Many large Tampa Bay-based companies are our clients."
The firm got off to a flying launch with US Airways Group Inc. as its first client. Local clients include The Sembler Co., Florida Trend magazine, A.D. Morgan Corp., American Hydro Inc., RedVector.com and Pinellas County Economic Develop-ment. "The type of development we do, we don't just build a site and never hear from our clients again," Craig says. "We pour our hearts and souls into it. We make our small clients look like Fortune 500 firms. We're now doing phase two and three for clients and we've just been in business two years."
Designing and hosting a jazzy website is just one aspect of the firm's services. An important component is creating a client's Internet strategy for e-commerce. "Their success is vital to us," Stover says. "In this area everybody talks to one another. We have to perform well, but we prefer it this way."
The partners are currently building a site for Nokia Americas Inc., perhaps the leading mobile phone supplier in the world, thanks to a referral from Clearwater's Tech Data Corp. "It's an Extranet site for Latin America," Craig says. "It's a bilingual site and we'll add Portuguese as the next phase."
Although the international aspect of Internet activities may seem glamorous, the partners agree that "America is 90 percent of where Internet business occurs. English is the prevalent language."
A departure from typical operations in the Internet world is the company's fixed-fee basis. "Most companies bill by the hour, and that can quickly get out of hand for clients," says Stover. "We have to be very efficient with our time, especially with a $250,000 site."
Starting small
The first two websites Stover and Craig designed were prototypes from which to market the firm. One, flashphotos.com, has been such a successful concept that it was recently acquired by an individual in Chicago. "We had no clients at the beginning and had to show off what we could do," Craig says. "It's a wedding picture site for professional photographers to display to consumers. We recently sold it for a lot more money than we dreamed of."
The other site is growing into a little side business. The partners created youralumni.com as a communications link for Shorecrest Preparatory School alumni. "It's a profitable product," says Stover. "We have 15 schools on it now and haven't done any marketing. We'll replicate this concept to different revenue models."
"It's been easier than we thought to find
the kinds of people we need. We've had no
trouble at all attracting staff. We've hired
over 300 people since our move."
-Bill Povilus, president,
Ceridian Benefits Services
In the final analysis, even though DataGlyphics is creating cyberhomes for dot-coms, the partners consider their own firm as "a traditional company that builds websites," Stover says. "We're a brick-and-mortar company making money on e-commerce."
Filling BayView Tower
While downtown's central business district is filling up small offices with Internet companies, the 184,000-square-foot BayView Tower (the former federal building) has had significant activity following its acquisition and renovation by Tampa-based Gulf Atlantic Real Estate. "We've leased 110,000 square feet since last November," says Joel Cantor at Gulf Atlantic. "We've attracted a blockbuster assortment of tenants."
St. Anthony's Hospital has opened a 10,000-square-foot wellness center on the first floor of the building. Omega Insurance Services Inc., which last year expanded by occupying 7,000 square feet at BayView, has done it again, moving into an additional 4,500 square feet. Coupon Basket Inc. is a start-up firm occupying one floor of the tower. "They'll facilitate the issuance of high-value coupons over the Internet," Cantor says.
Cincinnati-based Thrucomm Inc. is relocating its headquarters to the top floor of BayView Tower. "They're installing a network operations center for wireless credit card processing," says Cantor. "The reason they chose our building is they like our high-tech features. GTE [now Verizon Inc.] spent over $400,000 equipping this building with fiber optics. Thrucomm has critical operations and can't be down. We have dual electrical system power feed from two different plants and a third source of backup power generation, which is required by telecommunications tenants."
Thrucomm plans to bring 75 positions to downtown St. Petersburg when the build-out is completed.
With the flurry of leasing activity at BayView Tower, Cantor says vacancy has dropped to 63,000 square feet. "We're leasing 11,000 square feet a month," he says. "We'll be close to full in four to five months. We're pleasantly surprised. We planned on this market being vigorous and we could underprice our competition by a few dollars due to the cost basis on the building. This is a good market and we're looking for other opportunities here."
