Joel Cantor
Signature Developer
Join Date: Feb 2009
Posts: 2 It’s great to see the best project in the bay area rise.[/QUOTE]
I appreciate all the kind words from you guys. I visited the project yesterday and it really is looking stunning. The lobby will be like no other. We installed a 30 foot high Onyx stone back lit with LED flat panels. Onyx is a semi-precious stone we found in Austraila. My vision has finally become reality. Creating good architecture can be a lot of fun, but getting it built requires payment in blood, sweat, and fits of anger and a huge dose of determination. I’d be glad to put you on our opening party invite and show you all around..sometime in April. Simply email Debbie Newman at debbienewman@signaturestpete.com.
Joel Cantor
Signatrue Place Developer/Owner
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=431023&page=11
when Cantor’s chances of selling so many empty Signature Place condos seemed dim. The 36-story building became a symbol of big Florida dreams smacked by a crushing real estate collapse.
The saga of Signature Place, from its inception in 2005 to its selling out late last month, is an economic soap opera. It stars a go-for-broke Cantor, bold architects, big-scale builders, a bevy of nervous bank lenders, lawyers galore and buyers first wowed by the condo tower’s pre-recession cachet, then angered by unit prices that soon felt sky high in a fast-falling real estate market.
No matter. Cantor bulled his way to the finish line. He schmoozed with his reluctant Midwest bankers backing the project. He calmed the wait-a-minute real estate lawyers. Along the way, he filled a huge condo tower in a regional market where many other high-end condos in downtown St. Petersburg, in Tampa’s Channelside and in Clearwater still tread water.
Cantor even claims a profit despite the big price reductions he was forced to offer. He first knocked 33 percent off the initial prices at Signature Place to keep most of his condo buyers from feeling like they were getting fleeced.
http://www.newmanre.com/blog/2010/10/joel-cantor-rays-stadium-on-horizon/