Skyway Marina District: St. Pete's Next Big Move?
I used to live down there. The Sprouts is open now, the apartments are built, and the retail is filling in. Here's what's actually on the ground in the Skyway Marina District, and whether waterfront prices nearby have caught up yet.
About the Author
Carly Majorana
Waterfront and luxury real estate specialist at NextHome Gulf Coast in St. Petersburg, Florida. CLHMS Guild Member. $30M+ in Gulf Coast waterfront sales in five years. Serving buyers and sellers in St. Pete Beach, Tierra Verde, Treasure Island, St. Petersburg, Bayway Isles, and Pinellas Point.
I used to live in the Skyway Marina District.
Even then, it was obvious to me that this part of town had something going for it that nobody was pricing in. You're ten minutes from downtown and ten minutes from the beaches. I-275 is right there, so Tampa and the airport aren't a project. And the water is genuinely good water, with a short run to the Gulf that most of the peninsula doesn't have.
The only thing missing was everything on land. So I'd watch people write it off, and I'd think, this is going to be a big deal one day.
That day showed up faster than I expected. The Sprouts is open. The apartments are basically built. The retail is starting to fill in behind it. What was two dead office campuses five years ago is now a corridor with a grocery store, restaurants and a few thousand new neighbors.
So the question I'm getting from buyers: is the Skyway Marina District the next big St. Pete move, or is it just a lot of press releases?
First, the misconception
Most of the pushback I hear about this corridor isn't about what it is. It's about what it was. People who lived here fifteen years ago have a version of 34th Street South in their head, a tired commercial strip you drove through on the way to the beach, and they're still pricing that version.
That's the mistake. I've sold in Bayway Isles, Maximo Moorings, Broadwater and Pinellas Point, and the water on that side of the peninsula has always been good. What was missing was everything on land. That's the part that's changing, and it's changing at a scale most people haven't clocked yet.
What's actually being built
The district runs along 34th Street South (US-19) from roughly 30th Avenue S down to 54th Avenue S, the last stretch of St. Pete before the Skyway. Here's the real inventory:
- Skyway Village / Sky Town — 34.3 acres at 3201 34th St S. 2,084 apartments, about 69,000 SF of retail anchored by a Sprouts Farmers Market that is already open at 3411 32nd Ave S, 23,000 square feet, 22,500 SF of office, and 119,160 SF of self-storage. Developer Altis Cardinal paid $40 million for the old Ceridian office park in December 2021 and broke ground in October 2025. It's an $800 million project across six phases. Phase one is 401 units, 121 of them income-restricted, with $4.5 million from the City and $5.5 million from Penny for Pinellas.
- Alton Skyway — 619 apartments on 17.25 acres at 3200 34th St S, the old SPC public safety training campus. Kolter has it under contract at $26 million since October 2024. Two phases: 342 units, then 277. City Council denied the neighborhood appeal 6–1 on May 18, 2026, so it's moving. There's a one-acre outparcel for about 5,000 SF of retail that is not approved yet, worth knowing if someone tells you it's a done deal.
- Marina Club — 400 units at 4341 34th St S, finished June 2025. Eight stories, six residential floors over a podium garage, rooftop Sky Lounge looking out at Boca Ciega Bay. Same site has a 95,000 SF Storage Club and a Fifth Third branch.
- The retail outparcel at 4311 34th St S — 5,900 SF, now home to Huey Magoo's, Jersey Mike's and Smoothie King.
- The Addison Skyway Marina — 308 units at 3951 34th St S, done in early 2022. The one that kicked all this off.
- Marina Walk and Sur Club — both delivered, both full.
- Plus a Starbucks and a Chipotle, which is how you know the demographic models already ran the numbers.
Add it up: the residential is largely delivered and occupied, the grocery anchor is trading, and the shop space is leasing up around it. Over 2,700 units approved in total across roughly 51 acres, on land that was sitting empty five years ago.
The part that actually matters to boaters
Buildings can stall. Water doesn't.
You're about 15 minutes from the Gulf. That's the number that keeps surprising my buyers. From this side of the peninsula you're in Boca Ciega Bay and out Pass-a-Grille or Bunces Pass without the long slog down the Intracoastal you get running from downtown or the north end. Fort De Soto is a short cruise. If you'd rather fish Tampa Bay, you go south under the Skyway instead. Two very different fisheries, one dock.
Most of these canals are deep water, genuinely deep, not listing-description deep. That said, it varies house to house, and I've walked properties two doors apart where one floats a 32-foot center console at low tide and the other doesn't. Always check depth at mean low tide, not at whatever the tide happened to be doing the day you toured. I wrote a whole post on how to actually check whether your boat fits, because this is the single most expensive thing buyers get wrong.
Maximo Marina (IGY, 4801 37th St S) is the real anchor down here, and it's not a neighborhood dock. 212 slips, four megayacht berths, vessels up to 110 feet, 9.4 feet of draft, 20-foot beam. Covered slips, fuel dock, pump-out, a service yard, 30/50 amp with 100 amp single phase available, and 24-hour security. If you're buying a home nearby without dockage, a slip here is a legitimate plan B, and a lot of people don't realize that.
And you can still get dinner by boat. Tiki Docks Skyway at 3769 50th Ave S sits inside the marina with guest slips. Tie up, walk twenty feet, sit down. This matters more than it used to. After the storms, most of the docks we used to tie up to were gone, and the list of places you can actually reach by boat got short fast. Tiki Docks still had slips, so we ended up down there a lot.
The neighborhoods that surround it
This is the part that makes the corridor make sense. Look at who lives within five minutes of it:
- Tierra Verde — deepwater canals, big boats, gateway to Fort De Soto
- Isla del Sol — gated golf and yacht club island right on the Bayway
- Bayway Isles — guard-gated, large-lot deepwater, some of the best waterfront in south St. Pete
- Point Brittany — waterfront condos with marina slips, dense and established
- Maximo Moorings — canal-front single-family wrapped right around the marina
- Broadwater — classic mid-century canal-front, lifts on nearly every lot
- Yacht Club Estates and Causeway Isles — waterfront enclaves just north along the bay
- Pinellas Point and Bahama Shores — the big single-family base along the southern shoreline, direct Tampa Bay frontage
- Greater Skyway Marina and the Child's Park edge — the legacy neighborhoods east of 34th that the new mixed-income housing actually serves
- Eckerd College — a year-round population living on its own waterfront campus inside the district
- Gulfport — just north, and a natural spillover in both directions
- St. Pete Beach and Pass-a-Grille — the Pinellas Bayway dumps beach traffic straight onto 34th Street
That's a lot of boat money with nowhere walkable to spend it. For twenty years these neighborhoods drove north to Central Ave or downtown for anything decent. That's the gap the district is filling.
The affordability piece nobody says out loud
Homes on this side are still reasonable compared to what the same water gets you further north or out on the beaches. Same Gulf access, same canal depth in a lot of cases, meaningfully different price. Part of that is the old reputation. Part of it is that the amenities are only now showing up.
Which is exactly why I'd rather have this conversation with a buyer in 2026 than 2029.
Now the honest counterargument
It isn't finished.
Sky Town runs six phases, and only the first is up. Alton Skyway hasn't closed on its land yet, so that's 619 more units still ahead. The retail is filling in, not full. The version of this corridor people describe when they get excited about it lands in 2027 and 2028, not this fall. And a meaningful share of the new housing is income-restricted, which is good policy and also means it isn't the high-disposable-income renter base some of the marketing implies.
It's also still 34th Street. It's a US-19 commercial corridor with real traffic and stretches that haven't turned yet. Anyone telling you it's Central Ave right now is selling you something.
But the tipping point already happened. A grocery anchor open and doing business is the thing lenders and other retailers wait for, and that box is checked. This isn't a bet on a rendering anymore. It's a bet that a corridor which just turned keeps going, and that home prices there are still lagging the change.
What I'd check before buying down here
- Depth at mean low tide at that specific dock, not the canal generally, not the neighbor's
- Fixed bridges between you and open water, and the actual clearance, if you have any air draft at all
- Seawall condition and age, plus whether there's an engineer's report or just a "looks fine"
- Dock and lift permits — that it's permitted, and that the permit matches what's actually built
- Which construction is adjacent, and its phase schedule. A five-year build next door is a real quality-of-life line item
- Flood zone and current insurance quotes, not the seller's renewal from three years ago
- Post-storm history on that block specifically. Blocks in this area performed very differently, and the difference is worth knowing before you write.
So is it the next big move?
I think it's the last stretch of the peninsula where you can still buy good water at a price that hasn't caught up to what's already there. Not what's coming. What's there. You can buy groceries, get dinner, and be at your dock in the same trip now, which was not true a few years ago.
But I lived down there back when the only thing it had going for it was the location and the water. Those two things haven't changed, and now everything else is finally showing up around them. That's usually the tell.
FAQ
Where exactly is the Skyway Marina District?
It runs along 34th Street South (US-19) in St. Petersburg, roughly from 30th Avenue S down to 54th Avenue S, with I-275 to the east and Boca Ciega Bay to the west. It's the last section of St. Pete before the Sunshine Skyway Bridge.
How long does it take to get to the Gulf from the Skyway Marina District?
About 15 minutes by boat. You run out through Boca Ciega Bay and exit at Pass-a-Grille or Bunces Pass, which is a much shorter run than coming down the Intracoastal from downtown St. Pete or the north end of the county.
Are the canals in this area deep water?
Most of them are genuinely deep, but it varies house to house. Two homes on the same canal can have very different usable depth depending on dredging history and where the dock sits. Always verify depth at mean low tide at that specific dock before you write an offer.
Can you get to a restaurant by boat in the Skyway Marina District?
Yes. Tiki Docks Skyway at 3769 50th Ave S sits inside Maximo Marina and has guest slips, so you can tie up and walk in. That's become more valuable since the storms, with a lot of dock-and-dine spots on this coast still rebuilding.
What has been built in the Skyway Marina District?
The two big ones are Skyway Village / Sky Town, 2,084 apartments and about 69,000 SF of retail on 34.3 acres, and Alton Skyway, 619 apartments on 17.25 acres. The Sprouts anchor is already open, most of the apartments are built and occupied, and the shop space is filling in. Marina Club, The Addison, Marina Walk and Sur Club are all complete.
Is it a good time to buy in the Skyway Marina District?
The corridor has already turned. The grocery anchor is open, the apartments are largely built, and restaurants are filling in. The remaining Sky Town phases and Alton Skyway run through 2027 and 2028, so there's more coming. Home prices in the surrounding waterfront neighborhoods haven't fully caught up to that yet, which is the opportunity.
