St. Petersburg
Many are unaware of some of the more interesting elements of St. Petersburg’s past, particularly when it comes to the mafia. Yes, you read that right. The greater Tampa Bay area has numerous links with these underground self-employed ty;es, from the Cuban and Irish mafias, to the more traditional Italian/Chicago style variety. One of our most famous visitors was the big man himself: Al Capone.
Though his presence was known in this area,it is hard to pinpoint exactly when and where he stayed here. Our investigations have included the Don Cesar, the Crystal Bay Hotel, where his wife, children, and bodyguard stayed, and now the Kress building. One of the team’s earliest investigations was on Cherry Street, where the homeowners were told the godfather had once held a residence. He is also said to have had property in south Saint Petersburg as well as Tarpon Springs.
However, Capone was an elusive fellow. He often signed in under the name Al Brown and utilized the services of others to buy and sell property. For years, historians have worked to pin down the truth behind his presence with little success.
With this in mind, we are placing Capone and his alleged affiliations under the urban legends page. This includes his connection to the S.H. Kress and Co. building.
The Kress building was part of a national 5 and dime chain that settled in this area. Its sister store’s corpse can still be found under renovation in downtown Tampa and locations existed in other parts of Florida. St. Petersburg’s store housed itself in the beautiful structure on the corner of 5th and Central. The building was completed in under a year and opened in 1929. The business was later sold to Genesco who started to liquidate many of the existing locations. Some were sold to McCrory’s and existed until that chain also closed in 2001.
According to local lore, Al Capone ran a speakeasy out of the bottom of the Kress building. While it is true that the structure does have an existing section underground, the rumors add that there were a series of tunnels carved beneath the streets connecting to other structures.l The Kress building was once supposed to be attached to a secret underground theater buried beneath the corner opposite.
Several people have repeated the same story of the mysterious theater, underground tunnels, and bootlegged hootch. A deep dive and a tour of the Kress building has yet to find evidence making this true, but we will open the page and see what information we can find to debunk or subsidize this lore.
