The St. Pete Store is St. Pete Made.

The St. Pete Store is 2 years old!

We are so proud to be celebrating our second year of operation, that The St. Pete Store & Visitors Center wanted to reflect on two years of fun and collaboration.

The idea of The St. Pete Store was born when guests in the Information Center were looking high and low for St. Pete souvenirs downtown. They asked for St. Pete t-shirts, postcards, bags and local art to take home with them. As the only St. Pete Visitors Center, we wanted to offer more to our visitors and reflect the art and soul of what St. Pete.

We collaborated with the City of St. Petersburg and created a consignment model for our space with the goal of creating a showcase for St. Pete, created by St. Pete makers.

With the City behind us, we renovated our space that hadn't been updated since the 70's! Two years ago, local contractors and St. Pete Chamber members at P.J Callaghan renovated and expanded our space. We had the footprint of the shop but we needed so much more.

The search began for our first vendors, or as we like to call them "St. Pete Store artists". One of our very first collaborators was Danni LeTendre, creator of Spring Green Handbags.

The story goes, Danni's up-cycled totes were the light bulb of inspiration we needed to create the space. With the support of the city, our list of St. Pete Store artists was soon full of creatives that we had the honor to know and love.

We collaborated with local furniture maker Currahee Vintage and Industrial to create custom-made furniture; every piece of furniture in our space is made by them. Working with Chris Longmire was a collaborative and innovative process. The finished products are stunning, wooden industrial pieces that are equal parts function and beauty.

After our space started to come together, we felt we needed a bit of St. Pete color. We reached out to well-known local mural artist Derek Donnelly. We wanted our patrons to be met with a colorful, warm St. Pete welcome as soon as they arrived at the Visitors Center. Derek designed a postcard-style mural for our main wall. Now, visitors from all over the world strike poses in front of our postcard mural, sending "Wish you were here!" texts back home.

Our space was created to offer a cohesive, and expressive visitor experience. At first, we thought of the space as a "hybrid" but later realized each half is part of the whole. St. Petersburg, a city that people travel far and wide to enjoy, wouldn't be the colorful, artful or cultural community it is without our artists and entrepreneurs. Our space is just a reflection of that innovation.