Groundbreaking set for transformative downtown Clearwater project

Construction is set to officially begin early next month on a major project on the site of the former City Hall building in Clearwater.

The developers and construction company behind The Bluffs have scheduled a ceremonial groundbreaking for April 6 that will be ceremonial in the traditional sense but also symbolic since it will represent the next step in a decadeslong wait for the transformation of the city’s downtown.

The Bluffs is the second — and arguably most prominent — piece of a two-project development being built by The Gotham Organization and The DeNunzio Group. 

Plans for The Bluffs call for a 630,000-square-foot, mixed-use development featuring a 400-unit luxury rental building, more than 10,000 square feet of retail space and 440 parking spaces.

Moss Construction is the general contractor.

The second project is about a block away at Osceola and Cleveland streets, on the site of what was Harborview Center and the former Mass Bros. department store. It will feature a 158-room Hilton hotel with about 20,000 square feet of retail space.

Both are near Coachman Park — which itself recently underwent an $84 million redevelopment.

The Bluffs is moving forward now after Gotham and DeNunzio secured $160 million in construction financing. The firms, in a February statement, said $115 million of the money will come in the form of a senior loan from Wells Fargo. The additional $45 million will be mezzanine debt and preferred equity from Schroders Capital and Lionheart Strategic Management.

The revival of Clearwater’s long dormant downtown district has been a subject of conversation for years. It was once a traditional mid-size downtown anchored by the Mass Bros. store that remained somewhat bustling, though still somnolent, into the mid-1980s. 

The famed Fort Harrison Hotel — where the Rolling Stones famously wrote the opening riff to (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction and today is owned by the Church of Scientology — was there as well as small churches, businesses and Clearwater City Hall.

But, longtime residents and observers will tell you, that over the years it has become more and more deserted despite efforts to revive it that are just now starting to show some results.