The newly renovated Visitors Center complete with a brand new St. Pete Store are now open for business in downtown St. Pete. The Center and Store directly across the street from Sundial offers St. Pete-centric gifts and trinkets created by local artists and vendors.
“The St. Pete Store houses some of the cool products that are made in the shade here in St. Pete,” said St. Petersburg Chamber of Commerce President Chris Steinocher. “We are excited to partner with the City to offer St. Pete artists and makers a space to showcase their one-of-a-kind keepsakes to visitors and locals alike.”
The store is a collaboration between both the City and the Chamber to give shoppers and visitors a chance to take home locally produced souvenirs. The store includes more than two-dozen community partners including PJ Callahan Construction, Visit St. Pete Clearwater, Currahee Vintage and Industrial and Scott Wagman.
Partners provided things like construction services, paint, custom built display cases and various different grants to cover costs. The space is an expansion of already existing space. Because the expansion capitalized on already owned space and partnered with community businesses, costs for the project only came to about $18,500.
The St. Pete Store will celebrate its official Grand Opening Wednesday from 5:30 until 7:00 p.m., but the store has already been open for about a week. According to Kristina Alspaw, the Chamber’s visitors experience manager, previous traffic through the Visitors Center had been almost exclusively tourists, but not that the store is open the ratio as jumped to about 50/50.
The store currently contains items ranging from t-shirts to food and cooking items and household décor.
The popular “World Tour” shirts that say list London, Paris, Tokyo, St. Pete vertically are available in both black and gray. New shirts from a local designer called Rock it Out Wear are also providing shirts in an array of colors with slogans like “Sunday Funday for St. Pete.”
Duncan McClellan has etched wine glasses available while Practically Pikasso provided painted wine glasses with St. Pete painted at the base of the stem and designs like sea turtles and sailboats.
Things like throw pillows and wall hangings with St. Pete-centered designs are also on sale as well as a variety of tourist goodies like a six-pack of magnets with scenes of St. Pete printed on them.
Stock in the store will rotate quarterly to allow for displays from different kinds of artists and to keep the merchandise seasonal and relevant.
“We’re new at this. We’re going to be growing,” Alspaw said. “We’re still going to be working on signage and establishing our brand.”
Items for sale in the store will typically be under $50. About 60 percent of the proceeds from sales will go back into the arts community. The rest will be used to cover operating expenses.
St. Pete Mayor Rick Kriseman and chamber president Chris Steinocher are expected to speak at the Grand Opening and Ribbon Cutting Wednesday.
The store is open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. More information is available on the store’s newly established website.
