Historic St. Petersburg Neighborhoods

St. Petersburg, the fourth-largest city in Florida, was founded in 1888 and now has 248,000 residents. Set on Tampa Bay, this city has an average temperature in the mid-70s and an active population year-round. Founded by a Russian aristocrat and named for his hometown of St. Petersburg, Russia, St. Pete’s quickly became home to spring baseball and to snowbirds looking to escape the northern cold by wintering in the Florida sunshine.

As the city grew, its neighborhoods flourished. Today St. Petersburg is a network of historic and architecturally significant neighborhoods, each with its own unique personality and almost all with a link to the parks that make this a real city-by-the-bay.

Historic Old Northeast

The Historic Old Northeast neighborhood was the first established residential subdivision in St. Petersburg and was founded in 1911 by C. Perry Snell and J.C. Hamlett. The neighborhood runs north to Tampa Bay from 5th to 30th Avenues. This area has a mix of housing styles that were influenced by early northern settlers coming to St. Petersburg and includes Mediterranean, colonial, bungalow, and prairie styles. The vegetation is mature and native, with large oaks, jacarandas, pines, palms, maples, and magnolias. Historic Old Northeast has brick streets, granite curbs, and hex block and concrete sidewalks. North Shore Park encompasses the eastern edge of the neighborhood and offers swimming, tennis, bike trails, continuous sidewalks, a baseball field, a children’s playground, and a white sand beach. Colorful Coffee Pot Bayou and its famous manatees are also located in Historic Old Northeast, as is the Snell Isle Bridge, which crosses the Bayou, linking North Shore to Snell Isle. 

North Downtown

North Downtown is in central St. Petersburg, just north of downtown and west of Tampa Bay. It’s home to Mirror Lake, the city’s first source of drinking water and continued source of recreation. The Carnegie Library, or Mirror Lake Branch Library, was built in 1914 and sits at the east end of the lake in Mirror Lake Park. The nationally recognized Coliseum Ballroom is also located in North Downtown, as are the St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Club, the National Shuffleboard Hall of Fame, the Chess Club, and the Lawn Bowling Club. The neighborhood offers a mix of residential and commercial buildings built between 1900 and the 1940s, with architectural styles that range from the Florida cracker style to Spanish stucco and Mediterranean. Residents of North Downtown have an easy walk to galleries, Tropicana Field, restaurants, and City Hall.