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The Alexander Hotel was constructed on Central Avenue in 1919 for investor Jacob Alexander. The first floor of the four-story building held Bob's Cafeteria, run by Robert Ely, the hotel proprietor. The upper three floors of hotel rooms featured verandas facing Central Ave., decorated with Tuscan columns and iron railings. The hotel opened in 1920, a period when increasing automobile traffic was changing St. Petersburg from a small village to a tourist destination. The hotel eventually transitioned to a residential hotel, offering short and long-term rentals until it closed in 1984. The hotel building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984 for its association with Atlanta architect Neel Reid and its Classical Revival architecture. Soon afterward, the vacant building was renovated and became an office building. At the time of this article, the ground floor includes two restaurants, Tony's Pizza (533 Central) and Brick and Mortar (539 Central).


Front of Alexander Hotel building in 2018 photo (Beyond My Ken)

Car, Building, Wheel, Property

Front (south) of Alexander Hotel building in 1984 (Carl Shiver for NRHP)

Property, Window, Building, White

Detail of fourth story cornice and colonade at Alexander Hotel (Shiver 1984)

Building, Rectangle, Material property, Fixture

View of lobby in vacant Alexander Hotel building in 1984 (Shiver)

Property, Building, Black, Black-and-white

"Hotel Alexander" on 1923 Sanborn insurance map, p. 12

Rectangle, Slope, Font, Parallel

January 1922 magazine ad for Hotel Alexander/Bob's Cafeteria & two more local hotels

Font, Rectangle, Parallel, Paper

Jacob F. Alexander, a financier, purchased two lots on Central Ave. in St. Petersburg in April 1919 and hired an Atlanta architect, Neel Reid, to design a hotel. Reid later designed a building for the Alexander National Bank, also in downtown St. Petersburg. A local architect, William Shull, supervised the Alexander Hotel construction which took place from May through December 1919; H. H. Carson won the building contract. Hotel trade publications announced the plans were for a 65-room hotel. Alexander also was building a hotel in 1919 in his hometown of Forest City, North Carolina in 1919, projected to cost $40,000.

The hotel was one of at least three new hotels being proposed for St. Petersburg in early 1919. The Alexander didn't open until November 1920. The proprietor of the Alexander Hotel was Robert Ely, who acquired a ten-year lease from Alexander; the hotel manager was Robert Carroll. St. Petersburg continued to see a building boom in the 1920s, and the Alexander Hotel became one of many new hotels, most of which were larger. Room rates ranged from four to eight dollars per night at the Alexander in early 1922.

Robert L. Ely was known locally as "Bob" and the Alexander Hotel came to be nicknamed "Bob's" in the 1920s. Ely was a native of Chattanooga, Tennessee who arrived in St. Petersburg in 1915 after working as a blacksmith and a truck manufacturer. He saw a need for the increasing number of automobile travelers to the area to be fed at a reasonable price, so he used his meager savings and a bank loan to start the first cafeteria in St. Petersburg. One of the customers at Bob's Cafeteria was Jacob Alexander, who had been visiting St. Petersburg in the winters for his health since 1911. The two men collaborated to expand the cafeteria and add a hotel. Alexander died in late 1925 in St. Petersburg at age 66.

The hotel was constructed of buff-colored brick and concrete. Bob's Cafeteria occupied the eastern third of the first floor, with the kitchen in the building's rear west corner. The lobby was in the front, central portion of the building and was the only part of the building that was one story tall. A store was located to the west of the lobby in the front of the building. The upper three floors with hotel rooms featured a three-tiered veranda or gallery facing Central Ave.; the Classical Revival-inspired verandas with paired Tuscan columns were decorated with intricate details in cast concrete and iron railings. A columned pergola topped the front of the roof of the one-story central lobby, connecting to the verandas of the side wings of rooms on the second floor.

The former cafeteria space had been converted into two stores by the 1980s.The Alexander Hotel eventually became a residential hotel, and then closed for good in 1984. Alexander Restoration, LTD. owned the vacant building in 1984 when it was documented for listing in the National Register. The building, with its 75 hotel rooms with their own bathroom on the upper three floors, was restored and converted into office spaces, with commercial spaces flanking the ground-floor lobby.

Alexander Schools Inc. ASI Leaders, ASI History. Accessed November 1st, 2023. https://alexanderschoolsinc.org/asi_history/asileaders.html.

Anonymous. New and Remodeled Hotels. The Hotel Monthly. January 1st, 1919. 82 - 88.

Anonymous. New and Remodeled Hotels. The Hotel Monthly. June 1st, 1919. 31 - 38.

Cutler, Harry Gardner. History of Florida, Past and Present: Historical and Biographical. Volume 2. Chicago, IL. Lewis Publishing Company, 1923.

Shiver, Carl. Paarlburg, Larry S. NRHP nomination of Alexander Hotel, St. Petersburg, Florida. National Register of Historic Places. Washington, DC. National Park Service, 1984.

Image Sources(Click to expand)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Hotel_(St._Petersburg,_Florida)#/media/File:Alexander_Hotel,_535_Central_Avenue,_St._Petersburg,_Florida.jpg

National Park Service (NPS): https://npgallery.nps.gov/AssetDetail/NRIS/84000200

NPS: https://npgallery.nps.gov/AssetDetail/NRIS/84000200

NPS: https://npgallery.nps.gov/AssetDetail/NRIS/84000200

U. of Florida Digital Collections (UFDC): https://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00074228/00006/

Google Books: Mississippi Valley Magazine, January 1922, p. 12