Popular St. Pete Beach hotel The Beachcomber sells to investment firm

The Beachcomber Beach Resort on St. Pete Beach, which was damaged during Hurricane Helene in 2024 and closed for about a year, has been sold to a South Carolina developer.

A sale price was not disclosed, and Pinellas County property records have not been updated. The previous owner was Miami based Gencom, which paid $24 million in 2018 for the property at 6200 Gulf Blvd.

The buyer is Spartanburg-based OTO Development, which already owns the Hilton Garden Inn St. Pete Beach next door to The Beachcomber.

In a statement announcing the purchase, OTO CEO Rob Rain says that the company is “intrigued by the potential synergy” between the two properties, which have two of the town’s busiest bars.

(Jimmy B’s Beach Bar is in The Beachcomber and the Hilton has a beach bar.)

OTO also owns the AC Hotel St. Petersburg, Hampton Inn & Suites Ybor City and DoubleTree North Redington Beach. In all, the company says it owns 579 rooms in the Tampa Bay market.

The 102-room Beachcomber sits on more than six acres and includes a parking lot across the street, says Hodges Ward Elliott, a boutique hotel real estate capital markets advisor affiliated with the Tampa based commercial real estate firm Franklin Street.

Along with the bar and beachfront, the resort also has about 2,100 square feet of meeting space and two heated outdoor pools.

The Beachcomber, which has been in operation for more than 50 years, was heavily damaged by several feet of flooding during Helene and forced to close for repairs. It reopened Oct. 30.

Hodges Ward Elliott’s Preston Reid, Rudy Reudelhuber and Celina Nowicki represented the sellers in the transaction.