At 3 a.m. on May 27, 2026, Florida DOT crews opened the new northbound express lanes on the Howard Frankland Bridge — the centerpiece of a $972.5 million bridge replacement project that began in 2020. The lanes run in the median of I-275, separated from general traffic by barrier walls. Their northern terminus is 4th Street North in St. Petersburg.
Most people who live in Five Points and Allendale Park have been driving past the construction for two years. The connection most of them haven't made yet: the commercial corridor they use every day just became the first exit point off the fastest route between St. Pete and Tampa. Three national brands filed permits on this strip within the last eighteen months. One celebrated local chef opened his dream restaurant in March 2025 and is adding brunch this June. Harvey's has been here since 1984 and isn't going anywhere.
None of that is coincidence.
What 4th Street Was Before This Wave
The corridor has never been a sleepy strip. Harvey's 4th Street Grill at 3121 4th St N has anchored the north end of the dining scene since 1984, serving gulf red grouper delivered whole daily from local fishermen and running its Full Moon Party — a monthly lobster-and-live-entertainment tradition — for decades. The Wheelhouse, Noble Crust, COPA, and On The Fly (the Ciccio Restaurant Group food hall combining Fresh Kitchen, Taco Dirty, and Better Byrd under one roof) filled in the middle years. The bones were already there.
What's different now is the pace, and the mix of who's arriving.
Sunshine City Tavern: The Local Bet That Landed
Chef Ted Dorsey spent twenty years wanting to open a neighborhood bar in St. Pete. He didn't do it on Central Avenue or Beach Drive. He did it at 4351 4th Street North, in a space that had previously housed Fred Fleming's Famous Bar-B-Que, Luckie B's Bar-B-Que, and Quickies Scratch BBQ before Oaks on 4th closed in late 2023.
Dorsey acquired Fred Fleming's original Southern Pride smoker and put it back to work. Sunshine City Tavern opened March 24, 2025, with a 3,500-square-foot room, teal walls, a mural by local artist Kaitlin Ramirez (known as Swirly Painter), and St. Pete street signs on the walls. The menu runs smoked brisket, wings, meatloaf, and locally sourced seafood — including house-smoked amberjack fish spread — alongside a full bar with what Dorsey has described as the most aggressive happy hour in the city. Saturday and Sunday brunch launches June 7.
Dorsey's résumé includes Sonata at the Mahaffey, The Mill, Boca Kitchen Bar, Ciro's Speakeasy, and Copperfish. His choice to plant his neighborhood-bar concept on 4th Street rather than a higher-profile corridor says something about where he thinks the long-term residential density is going.
What's in Motion Right Now
Three projects are at different stages on the corridor as of late May 2026:
9100 4th Street North — Chipotle (under construction): The longtime Krispy Kreme location, the only Krispy Kreme in St. Petersburg for more than a decade, closed to make way for a Chipotlane. According to a permit filing with the Southwest Florida Water Management District, remodeling of the 2,430-square-foot building is expected to begin in March and complete by September 2026. The project is being led by Mississippi-based Streamline Development Partners.
9595 4th Street North — Cook Out (permitted, opening pending): Cook Out, the North Carolina-based chain, purchased the former Boston Market building at this address for approximately $2.6 million in September 2024. Permits are filed and a contractor is assigned. No firm opening date has been announced, but the project remains active.
Shipley Do-Nuts — replacing a Starbucks on 4th Street North: The Houston-based doughnut chain is set to open its first St. Pete location on this corridor, taking over a former Starbucks building.
Three national brands, one strip, eighteen months. That pattern doesn't emerge from a corridor that was standing still.
The Infrastructure Argument
National retail site selection runs on traffic models. Brands like Chipotle and Cook Out don't cluster because one follows the other — they cluster because they're reading the same underlying data about commuter volume, rooftop counts, and access points.
The new I-275 express lanes change the calculus for 4th Street North specifically. The lanes extend from 4th Street North in St. Pete to just north of the Howard Frankland Bridge in Tampa, running in the median and separated from general traffic. They're currently toll-free during a testing phase; once tolling begins, they'll be collected electronically through SunPass. For commuters choosing the express lanes southbound from Tampa, 4th Street North is the natural re-entry point into the city grid.
That's not a minor update. It means the corridor gets a measurable share of new commuter traffic that didn't exist before May 27, 2026. Chains that filed permits in late 2024 and early 2025 weren't responding to the lanes opening — they were responding to the bridge project already under construction, which had been publicly tracked since 2020.
What looks like a sudden cluster of activity is actually the lagged commercial response to an infrastructure bet that's now paying off.
What Doesn't Change
The thing about 4th Street is that the new arrivals don't erase what was already here. Harvey's Full Moon Party still runs. Sunshine City Tavern is already the kind of place where, per its own positioning, you can show up multiple times a week without it feeling like an event. On The Fly and Noble Crust are still doing what they do.
The corridor is denser now than it was eighteen months ago, and by the time the Chipotle construction wraps in September and Cook Out eventually opens, it will be denser still. For residents of Five Points and Allendale Park, that means a main street that keeps filling in without losing the neighborhood feel that made the stretch worth anchoring in the first place.
Dorsey said it plainly when he described Sunshine City Tavern's location: "I love this specific property — its proximity to the neighborhoods, families and schools." That's the street he chose. The chains read the same map and arrived at the same block.
If you're thinking about what it means to own in this part of St. Pete right now — or if a property on or near this corridor has caught your attention — Plotkin Homes knows this neighborhood block by block. Reach out and let's talk through what you're seeing.
