Suncoast gay resort st. petersburg
ABOVE: The Wet Notice rendering. Photo/logos via David Fischer.
ST. PETERSBURG | The Grand Central District will soon welcome an LGBTQ-focused hotel and pool bar to the eclectic neighborhood, the latter of which will initiate opening for St Pete Pride.
The spaces are the latest concepts from David Fischer, owner of the interior blueprint firm and retail shop ZaZoo’d, speakeasy The Saint and LGBTQ staple Cocktail. The Wet Detect Pool Bar & Day Club and Mari Jean Hotel, the entrepreneur’s novel ventures, will participate a building with the bars.
That building is the historic hotel itself, built in and purchased in by Michael Andoniades, owner of the Hollander Hotel and Avalon. The Saint will honor two years on site this September, while Cocktail marked one year in May. The Assist Room by ZaZoo’d also opened last month, a retail experience with float suits and more.
Each venture has shown Fischer there’s a hunger for LGBTQ businesses in the area.
“We have learned that there is a huge market for gay clientele within the St. Pete area, bigger than we even thought,” he explains. “Not only at C
This project set out to collect Oral Histories and explore the following question: How has being a member of the Diverse community and an active proponent in the lgbtq+ rights movement shaped participants’ experiences as members of the St. Petersburg and Gulf Beaches community?
Countless one-of-a-kind experiences have contributed to the collective history of the LGBTQ+ community in Pinellas County, and their in-group knowledge has not been given nuanced attention by most historians. The contributions of this proposal are beginning to pack this gap in the historical documentation of the full range of Gulf Beaches residents and people members, while also providing insights into larger social patterns of inclusion and prejudice. As the plan grows over the coming years to encompass a wider, more diverse range of oral history participants, the hope is that these themes will change into increasingly self-evident. Until this collection is robust enough to speak for itself, future generations of Honors College students will persist to collect Oral Histories throughout the community and develop
Businessman David Fischer to convert Mari Jean Hotel into a queer resort
David Fischer, who has made a name for himself in St. Petes flourishing LGBTQ+ group, is now taking on a new business venture establishing a gay resort.
Fischer is an entrepreneur known for creating widespread gay-centric and friendly destinations such as The Cocktail Bar, The Saint Speakeasy and the ZaZood retail shop, but he is taking his endeavors a step further alongside a business spouse to redevelop the Mari Jean Hotel into an adults-only male lover resort.
The original Mari Jean Hotel building is a historic property, built in at Central Ave. The original owners lived in a home nestled in the hotel’s gardens. In , the house was relocated and became the Metro Inclusive Health LGBTQ Welcome Center.
Fischer explained the idea of converting the hotel into a gay resort came into view by Michael Andoniades, owner of the Hollander, Avalon hotels and the Mari Jean. Fisher has a deep-rooted working association with Andoniades, as he worked on the interior design of his hotels.
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St. Petersburgs Skyway Marina District to get $70 million mixed-use project
ST. PETERSBURG — Years after a famous gay resort closed and its property was sold to Home Depot, the empty, weed-strewn site is about to be developed.
Phillips Development & Realty, which expects to close on the parcel in December, has unveiled plans for a $70 million mixed-use project that will add apartments and about 15, to 25, square feet of retail space, including a restaurant.
The Tampa unyielding submitted its site arrange to the city Monday. The St. Petersburg Growth Review Commission is expected to consider it in January. Glen Stygar, an executive with Phillips Growth, said work on the 9-acre property on 34th Street — between 30th and 32nd avenues S — will begin in late spring or first summer next year.
The undertaking has brought another burst of good news to the fledgling Skyway Marina District, which has seen slow but steady progress toward its goal of redeveloping the area adjacent to waterfront neighborhoods and near Eckerd College and southern Pinellas County beach communities.