Enduring Places, THE SAGE

Like many of our projects, The Sage is located in an urban setting. In the part of St. Petersburg, Florida where the project is located, there are older buildings and established neighborhoods as well as newer developments and even an expressway onramp. The design challenge was to be sensitive to the existing character and scale of the neighborhood while finding a solution that would meet the requirements of our client in this fast-growing city. The site was zoned for unlimited height, but the local zoning officials predicted we would not be able to build more than seven stories due to neighborhood concerns.

Our solution was to take the neighborhood’s concerns into account in our approach to the way we massed the building program on the site. We ultimately proposed a building that contemplated a tower at the back half of the site with two shorter wings separated by a courtyard which fronted the boulevard and echoed the general scale and rhythm of the neighboring buildings.

By using this strategy, we were able to persuade the neighbors to approve a 12-story scheme which has been well received by the city and the local community. In addition to meeting the development goals of our client, the strategy created a variety of unit types at a range of price points which facilitated sales and brought a welcome diversity of residents to the project and the community. Finding opportunities for this kind of symbiosis between the development and the neighborhood, whereby each is enhanced by the presence of the other, is the key to creating places that will endure beyond the foreseeable future.