FAA Permits Filed For 540-Foot-Tall Building Across From Curtis Hixon Park In Downtown Tampa

Permits have been submitted to the Federal Aviation Administration seeking approval for the construction of a 540-foot-tall building at 601 North Ashley Drive in Downtown Tampa. Located directly across the street from Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park, the property is comprised of two parcels of land that make up an entire city block netting a combined 1.03 acres, or 44,867 square feet, bound by North Tampa Street on the East, East Twiggs Street on the South, North Ashley Drive on the West and East Zack Street on the North with approximately 210-feet of frontage on each side. The property is currently improved with a 12-story office tower that was built back in 1925 called the GTE Tower, which yields a net 61,290 square feet of space, and surface level parking lots. The permits were filed on February 18, 2022.

TLR Tower LLC, an affiliate entity of Downtown Tampa-based real estate investment and management company TLR Group (TLR), is the owner of the the property according to Hillsborough County property records. TLR Group, which itself is an affiliate of LCN Property Management and Groupe Mach, based in Montreal, Canada, and headquartered at the GTE Tower, purchased the building and site assemblage from Ashley 601 Inc. for $20,055,000 back in April 2021. The property falls within Downtown Tampa’s Central Business District and is specifically zoned for multi-story office use. For the sake of naming, we will reference the project as TLR Tower.

Permit Filing for 601 N. Ashley Drive (center of site). Photo from the FAA.

Permit Filing for 601 N. Ashley Drive (southwest corner of site). Photo from the FAA.

Permit Filing for 601 N. Ashley Drive (southeast corner of site). Photo from the FAA.

Permit Filing for 601 N. Ashley Drive (northeast corner of site). Photo from the FAA.

Permit Filing for 601 N. Ashley Drive (northwest corner of site). Photo from the FAA.

Aerial view of 601 N. Ashley Drive. Photo from Hillborough County Property Appraiser.

There are no publicly known details regarding what exactly will rise here, but one can speculate that it could potentially be an office tower of 38 stories or so assuming the roof height tops out at 540-feet with an average of 14-foot ceiling heights. The northeast corner of the site is elevated approximately 18-feet above sea level, bringing the total cumulative height of the tower to a maximum of 558-feet. The post-modernist SkyPoint Condominiums at 777 North Ashley Drive, which is just north of TLR’s property, is a 32-story residential building that architecturally tops out at 414-feet to the tip, meaning TLR Tower would rise significantly higher and make a substantially noticeable impact to the existing skyline. Tampa’s current tallest building is 100 North Tampa, a 579-foot-tall, 42-story office tower which was completed in 1992 and designed by Dallas-based HKS Architects, followed by the second tallest, another 42-story office tower known as Bank Of America Plaza, which tops out at 577-feet. TLR Tower would occupy the title of the third tallest building in Tampa at 540-feet, taking the spot from the 537-foot-tall One Tampa City Center.

601 N. Ashley Drive – 3D Aerial View. Photo from Google Maps.

YIMBY predicts the GTE Tower will face demolition at some point in time to make way for a new structure. This is based on one of the coordinates listed in the filings for the structure, which pin-points the southeast corner of the property topping out at 557-feet above sea level, and this is exactly where GTE Tower stands today. Demand for new, modern office spaces has been significantly increasing in the area, which could serve as an indicator to the reasoning for the FAA permit filing. It makes sense to assume the developer intends to capitalize on the rising demand for office space with a much larger tower in a prime location.

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