Bank backs development project with $664M loan

Bank OZK executives, when they acquired high-flying St. Petersburg-based C1 Bank — in a $402 million purchase announced four years ago this week — said they planned to make a big splash in the market.

The Little Rock, Ark.-based bank, which has steadily expanded its Florida presence since the C1 deal closed in 2016, recently dove into the deep end: It signed off on a $664 million loan to the developers behind Water Street Tampa, the massive redevelopment project in the works in downtown Tampa. Bank OZK officials, in a mid-October conference call with Wall Street analysts, said it was the largest loan the $22.9 billion-asset bank has ever done.