Tampa’s AER tower, in the works for a decade, rises above the city center

The Arts and Entertainment Residences proposal in downtown Tampa dragged on for a decade before the apartment tower broke ground — but it’s been on track since construction began.

Despite early delays related to grout and a concrete supplier, the 31-story AER is on schedule, said Sean DeMartino, North and Central Florida president for Coastal Construction Inc.

“We’ve been able to recover most of that,” DeMartino told the Tampa Bay Business Journal. “And we’re tracking really well on the structure.”

On a typical day, more than 250 construction workers are on site, DeMartino said, and the tower will reach its full height of 31 stories in June. The tower is scheduled to be completed in the summer of 2024.

By the numbers

• 31 stories

• 334 apartments

• 13,688 square feet of retail space

• $113 million construction loan

The flurry of activity around the site is a far cry from the years that followed the tower’s proposal. Barricades help pedestrians and motorists navigate around the tower to the David A. Straz Jr. Center for Performing Arts Center and John F. Germany Public Library.

It is rising on a 1-acre parcel created by the reconfiguration of Cass and Tyler streets. But reaching an agreement between Straz center leaders, the city and the development team was slow moving, and construction had to be scheduled around the Straz’s Broadway series.

“That project should have been well underway three years ago,” former Mayor Bob Buckhorn told the Business Journal in 2019.

“It would have generated not only a lot of property tax revenues but also a million dollars to the Straz. It would have activated that piece of property with residential units and retail on the ground floor. It’s frustrating it hasn’t happened, but there’s a lot of different reasons for that, much of which we don’t control.”