* Time Magazine has named St. Petersburg’s Nadine Smith, the founder and director of Equality Florida, one of the 100 Most Influential People of 2022.
* Next UP for DOWNtown? Plans have been filed to build a 54-story, 311-unit residential tower on Ashley Drive, just SE of Curtis Hixon Park. At 633 feet, it would be the tallest tower on the Gulf Coast. The development plans were filed by Kolter Urban, a subsidiary of Delray Beach’s Kolter Group.
* “We’ll make Tampa ‘Crypto Beach.’”–Ben Weiss, founder and CEO of Chicago-based CoinFlip that plans to open an office in Tampa’s Sparkman Wharf and hire 40 tech workers.
* The St. Pete Pier is one of the finalists in the Urban Land Institute’s Americas Awards for Excellence. There are 21 finalists; the Pier was the only one from Florida. The ULI awards recognize superior development efforts in the private, public and nonprofit sectors.