TAMPA — The Mirasol, a century-old Mediterranean Revival building on Davis Islands that opened as a hotel in 1926, could be torn down.
D.H. Griffin Wrecking Co. has filed a demolition permit on behalf of the building’s owners, Tampa Bay 28 reported. The application comes months after Tampa City Council turned down the owners’ request to turn the apartments back into a hotel.
The Mirasol is not historically designated. That leaves its future with a city review that is now on the clock.
What happens next
The City of Tampa has 28 days to decide whether the demolition request goes before its Historic Preservation Commission, according to Tampa Bay 28. If city staff find the building doesn’t meet the criteria for historic designation, the demolition will be approved. If the commission decides it does meet the criteria, the question goes to City Council for a vote.
Under city code, that review applies whenever someone applies to demolish a building more than 50 years old, Bay News 9 reported. The commission can ask council to take emergency action if the building meets certain criteria, including being eligible for the National Register of Historic Places without being listed.
How it got here
Frank Carriera, who owns the Mirasol with Lindsey Carriera, bought the property in 2021, according to Bay News 9. In January, the owners asked council to allow a return to hotel use. Davis Islands residents pushed back, citing noise and traffic, and council denied the request.
At the Jan. 15 meeting, Carriera framed the hotel plan as a way to save the building after damage from Hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024.
“Our goal is not maximizing development. Our goal is preservation, and our vision is to return the Mirasol to its original purpose as a small upscale boutique hotel respectfully operated and reopened to the community,” he told council.
He also warned that restoring an old building costs far more than building new. “That is exactly why so many historic homes were demolished after the 2024 storms,” he said. Carriera, who said his career has been in multifamily investment sales, told council that “a 1.6 acre parcel on Davis Island on the water is worth two-to-three times more without the existing improvements than with them.”
Councilwoman Lynn Hurtak said at that meeting that approving the rezoning would not have guaranteed the building would be saved, and that a historic designation would have made a difference, according to Bay News 9.
The owners did not respond to Bay News 9’s request for comment on the demolition application.
A piece of the 1920s boom
The Mirasol opened with luxury rooms plus social and dining amenities for the new Davis Islands community, and a marina out back was part of the original design.
“The Mirasol is really a classic of that Florida, 1920s land boom, Mediterranean revival architecture. You know, the stucco walls, the archways ... it was opened originally with a restaurant, and of course it has the marina in the back that was also part of the original design,” Rodney Kite-Powell, a historian at the Tampa Bay History Center, told Tampa Bay 28.
Like many hotels of its era, it became apartments after the boom went bust. “By the late 1920s, so many of these hotels turned into apartment buildings because the need for hotel rooms had dropped, but the need for housing certainly had not dropped,” Kite-Powell said.