In the last week of September 2026, D.H. Griffin Wrecking Co. applied for a commercial demolition permit for the Mirasol at 84 Davis Blvd. It filed on behalf of the owners, Frank and Lindsey Carriera. The building is a seven-story Mediterranean Revival hotel that opened in 1926 and has held 58 apartments since the 1960s. According to Tampa Bay 28, the City of Tampa has 28 days to decide whether the request goes to its Historic Preservation Commission. If the building doesn't meet the criteria for designation, the demolition is approved.
The filing alone is news. What matters more for anyone shopping on the island is the reasoning the owner gave in public before he filed it. That reasoning applies to a lot more of Davis Islands than one apartment building.
The owner's math, stated on the record
The Carrieras and a small group of investors bought the Mirasol for $20 million in 2021. The site is a 1.6-acre waterfront parcel. At a City Council hearing in January 2026, Frank Carriera, who has spent more than 20 years in multifamily investment sales, put a value on the land itself.
"I can confidently say 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."
He also told council that tearing the building down would have been "the easiest and most profitable path." Instead, the owners spent more than two years trying to make a restoration work. During that time, deferred maintenance caught up with the building, and the 2024 hurricanes added structural, electrical, plumbing, facade and roof work. Their plan was to turn the Mirasol back into a hotel with roughly 110 to 118 rooms, add new wings where the surface parking is now, and use that income to pay for the restoration. On Jan. 15, council voted 5-2 against the land-use change the plan required.
The two sides of that vote framed the same problem differently. Council member Lynn Hurtak said, "If they bought it, they need to maintain it." Council chair Alan Clendenin, who supported the change, warned that "if it's not economically viable as an apartment building, it is going to be torn down." Neither of them disputed the starting premise that the parcel is worth more than the building on it.
The single-family sale record shows the same pattern
The Mirasol is a big, unusual building. The single-family sales around it suggest the same arithmetic plays out at house scale too.
On Sept. 19, 2025, the buyers paid $7.38 million for 42 Ladoga Avenue, a 1.03-acre waterfront property. The two-story house that stood there had been demolished after the 2024 hurricane season. The same Tampa Bay Times report listed several nearby 2025 sales, and the Tampa Bay Business Journal reported a finished new build in May 2026.
| Address | What sold | Price | When |
|---|---|---|---|
| 42 Ladoga Ave. | 1.03-acre lot, house already demolished | $7.38 million | Sept. 2025 |
| 350 Blanca Ave. | 4,763 sq ft home | $5.75 million | Feb. 2025 |
| 18 Ladoga Ave. | 2,172 sq ft home | $4.61 million | July 2025 |
| 417 Davis Blvd. | 3,227 sq ft home | $1.4 million | May 2025 |
| 90 Martinique Ave. | Poured concrete and steel home completed in 2024 | $14 million | May 2026 |
Do the division and the gap gets wide. The 2,172-square-foot house at 18 Ladoga sold for about $2,120 per square foot. The 3,227-square-foot house at 417 Davis Blvd. sold for about $430 per square foot. Same island, same year, and a five-fold spread. The houses don't explain a gap that size. The parcels they sit on do. A vacant lot outselling a finished 4,763-square-foot house a few blocks away points the same direction.
Davis Islands isn't the only place where this is happening. In July 2025, Willy Nunn, CEO of Homes by WestBay, told the Tampa Bay Times that the builder was buying storm-damaged South Tampa homes for around $700,000 and building homes that would sell for more than $2 million. Carriera made a similar point at the January hearing, as Bay News 9 reported: "Preserving a historic building, like the Mirasol, costs far more than building something new. That is exactly why so many historic homes were demolished after the 2024 storms."
No district rule protects the island's older buildings
The value gap would matter less if older buildings on Davis Islands had standing protection. Most don't. Tampa protects buildings through four local historic districts and 64 local landmarks. The four districts are Hyde Park, Seminole Heights, Tampa Heights and Ybor City. Davis Islands isn't one of them. The Mirasol has no local historic designation either.
What the island has instead is a case-by-case process. Under city code, an application to demolish a building more than 50 years old gets evaluated to see whether it qualifies for review by the Historic Preservation Commission. The commission can ask City Council to take emergency action if the building meets certain criteria. One of those criteria is being eligible for the National Register of Historic Places without being listed. The procedures are in Section 27-116 of the Tampa Code, which covers demolition certificates and determinations of historic status. At the January hearing, Hurtak said that approving the hotel rezoning wouldn't have guaranteed the building's survival, and that a historic designation would have made a difference.
Two buildings by the same architect show how far apart the outcomes can be. Franklin O. Adams designed 42 homes and commercial buildings on Davis Islands during its original development, and the Mirasol was one of them. Another was the 1926 Arthur Milam House at 301 Caspian St., which was listed on the National Register in 1989. In May 2026, Creative Loafing reported the Milam House on the market at $4.65 million. One Adams building is on a federal register. The other is waiting on a 28-day review with a wrecking company's application on file.
A demolition permit is not a construction schedule
For a buyer, the land-value pattern matters most in what it says about the parcel next door. It doesn't make anything certain, though.
58 Bahama Circle shows this. The owner sold the 22,000-square-foot house in 2021 for a record $22.5 million. Ellison Construction then announced plans to replace it with a 30,000-square-foot home. Ellison filed a demolition permit in 2022, the permit expired in 2023, and the Times found no new permits filed since. As of June 2026, the original house still stands.
The Mirasol filing doesn't settle much either. The application doesn't say what the owners plan to build afterward, whether they've made a final decision to demolish, what happens to the 58 apartments, or when demolition could start. As of the Times report, the permit was awaiting review. Planning Commission staff did tell council what the site could hold. It carries the same Residential-50 future land-use designation as the Ritz-Carlton Residences on Bayshore and could support the same residential density, though a new project might still need a rezoning.
So the building is only half the picture for a buyer. The land-use designation on a neighboring parcel sets what could replace the house next door, and the old building only tells you what's there today.
What to settle before an offer on an older island property
None of this is legal advice. These are the questions that decide whether an older Davis Islands listing is being priced as a house or as a lot.
- Designation status. Check with the city's Architectural Review and Historic Preservation office to see whether the parcel is a local landmark. The office can be reached at (813) 274-3100, option 3.
- Building age. If the structure is more than 50 years old, any future demolition application triggers the city's eligibility evaluation. That's true whether you're the one demolishing or a future buyer is.
- Register status. A National Register listing like the Milam House has, or eligibility without a listing, is one of the criteria that can push a case to City Council.
- Land use and zoning on both sides. Get the designations for the parcel you're buying and for its neighbors. The Mirasol's Residential-50 designation shows how much density a single island site can carry.
- Restoration math after the storms. If you plan to keep an older structure, get contractor pricing before the inspection period ends. Carriera told council that each year of waiting made restoration harder and more expensive.
Common Questions
Is Davis Islands a historic district?
No. Tampa's four local historic districts are Hyde Park, Seminole Heights, Tampa Heights and Ybor City. Older buildings on Davis Islands get reviewed one at a time, mostly through the demolition evaluation for structures more than 50 years old.
Does the Mirasol filing mean the building is coming down?
Not yet. As of early October 2026, the filing is an application awaiting review. Tampa Bay 28 reported that if the city finds the building doesn't meet the criteria for designation, the demolition request will be approved. If the Historic Preservation Commission finds it does meet them, the request goes to City Council for a vote.
Why doesn't this post quote a Davis Islands median price?
Florida Realtors' public monthly report covers the Tampa metro as a whole, and its city and ZIP code statistics are available only to members. Florida Realtors lists its next monthly release for Oct. 16, 2026. On an island where sales range from a $1.4 million house to a $7.38 million lot with no house on it, a parcel-level comparison tells a buyer more than a blended median would.
If you're weighing an older Davis Islands property and want to know whether its price reflects the house, the lot or the land-use designation, Phillip Ochoa can pull the parcel's comparable sales and designation details with you before you make an offer. Schedule a Consultation, in English or Spanish.
