How much does a condo bathroom remodel cost in St. Petersburg?

A 5x7 refresh with new tile, tub replacement, and a stock vanity typically runs $20,000 to $30,000 on top of any condo logistics premium. A master bath rebuild with walk-in shower, custom vanity, and floor-to-ceiling tile runs $40,000 to $70,000. Creating a bathroom where one did not exist can push $75,000 to $80,000 because all the plumbing has to be brought to the space. Add roughly $3,000 to $8,000 in condo-specific costs for elevator time, common-area protection, HOA application, and trim waste on most projects.

How long will my unit be under construction?

Plan 4 to 6 weeks of active construction for a facelift, 6 to 10 weeks for a full gut with new plumbing runs. On top of that, budget 2 to 6 weeks for HOA approval and 4 to 8 weeks for city permitting on the front end. Most condo bathroom projects take 3 to 5 months start to finish.

Can you actually move the toilet or shower?

Small moves of a foot or two usually work inside the existing branch drain. Bigger moves need approval from the association and often coordination with the unit below. The plumbing stack itself does not move without major HOA approval and building-wide coordination.

Do I need to move out during construction?

If it is your only bathroom, yes. If you have a second bathroom you can use, most owners stay in the unit and we work around them with tight scheduling and daily cleanup.

What if the HOA says no?

Most rejections are fixable. The common causes are missing insurance documentation, unclear scope drawings, or a plumbing move the building cannot allow. We handle the application package and adjust plans as the board asks.

Condo Bathroom Remodel in St. Petersburg — What Changes 12 Stories Up

A condo bathroom remodel in downtown St. Pete or on the beaches costs about the same per square foot as a house bathroom, but three things change: you cannot move the plumbing stack, you probably cannot cut the ceiling without an HOA fight, and if the building is 4 stories or taller your contractor needs a Florida commercial unlimited GC license. Plan on 4 to 8 weeks of construction after a 2 to 6 week HOA approval window and 4 to 8 weeks of city permitting. Budget a 5x7 refresh at $20,000 to $30,000 and a full master rebuild at $40,000 to $70,000, plus a condo logistics premium for elevator time, common-area protection, and 15 percent trim waste from freight-elevator size limits.

Why Condo Bathrooms Are Their Own Category

In a house, moving a toilet 18 inches for a walk-in shower means cutting the slab, rerouting the drain, and moving on. In a condo, that same move can trigger a structural engineer letter, HOA architectural review, an insurance rider, and a conversation with the neighbor below.

Jeremy Wharton, one of the Revolution owners, puts it plainly:

“Unique problems condo owners try to solve — they often want to change layouts even though they cannot because plumbing lines in a 20-story building cannot be moved without major approval. Usually it is just dated finishes. Sometimes ceilings are concrete so we cannot add lighting unless we drop a sleeper system for thin wafer can lights and fans.”

Most condo bathroom remodels in St. Pete work inside the wet wall the building was born with. Success comes from what you can do inside that box, not from pretending the box is not there.

The Plumbing Stack Is a Fixed Point — Design Around It

The biggest constraint in a condo bathroom is the vertical plumbing stack running floor to floor. The toilet flange, shower drain, and vanity lines all tie into it. You can shift a toilet a few inches if the horizontal branch allows. You cannot move the stack without HOA approval and, in most buildings, coordination with the units above and below.

What this means:

Toilet stays close to where it is. A 6 to 12 inch relocation usually works. A 4-foot move is a different project.
Shower drain travels with the shower footprint. Going from tub-shower combo to curbless walk-in usually keeps the drain in roughly the same zone with a slope adjustment. A linear trench drain 5 feet away is a plumbing rerun with more approvals.
Vanity sink relocation is easier — supply and drain lines have more forgiveness inside the wall cavity.

Move the finishes, not the plumbing, and the project moves twice as fast.

Concrete Ceilings and the Sleeper System

Most St. Pete high-rises past the 1980s use concrete floor systems. Your ceiling is the underside of the slab above — no attic, no joist bay for wire runs. Recessed lights and exhaust fans have nowhere to sit.

Two paths. Surface-mounted fixtures — flush LED discs and a bath fan tied into the existing penetration — are cheapest and fastest. Or what Jeremy calls “a sleeper system for thin wafer can lights and fans” — a low-profile framed drop below the concrete that hides low-voltage cable and thin fixtures. You lose an inch or two of headroom and gain lighting flexibility. It is a scope-vs-budget call to make before demo starts, not after.

HOA Rules, Jackhammer Windows, and the 4-Story License

Every St. Pete condo association handles remodels differently, but three rules show up almost everywhere. First, most HOAs require a full application package before work starts — plans, contractor license, insurance, workers comp, sometimes a compliance bond. Approval usually takes 2 to 6 weeks depending on how often the board meets. Second, if the scope includes cutting the slab or jackhammering the ceiling for plumbing reroutes, you are bound to a defined work window and neighbor notification. Third — and this catches homeowners off guard — Florida requires a commercial unlimited GC license, not a residential license, for any contractor pulling permits on a building 4 stories or taller.

Most downtown high-rises along Beach Drive, most Snell Isle waterfront buildings, and most beach towers in Tierra Verde and St. Pete Beach clear that threshold. Revolution holds the commercial unlimited license. Most residential GCs in Pinellas do not. It is worth asking early — the DBPR license search is free and takes about a minute. Our full condo remodel HOA and elevator guide walks through the application checklist in more depth.

Jeremy on how the notification piece actually plays out:

“In higher-end condos if we are jackhammering floors or ceilings we have to give a short window and notify neighbors. Sometimes we put notes on doors — it is good marketing and makes us look less like assholes.”

That is the tone of the thing. A condo bathroom remodel is as much about neighbor relations as it is about tile.

Waterproofing, Tile, and the Real Cost of Elevator Access

The bathroom itself gets built the same way it would in a house. Revolution uses the Schluter waterproofing system on most showers — a bonded membrane with a lifetime warranty that runs a couple thousand dollars more than the old thick-membrane approach and holds up dramatically better. Large-format tile costs more than smaller field tile because it needs a flatter substrate and creates more waste on cuts. For general bathroom remodel scope and finish decisions, the fundamentals are the same as a house bathroom.

Then there is the piece that only shows up on high-rise jobs. Freight elevators in most St. Pete condo towers have an interior dimension around 10 feet on the longest side. Standard trim material — baseboard, casing, some tile sheets — comes in 12-foot lengths. As Jeremy explains:

“If the elevator’s longest dimension is 10 feet, we cannot take 12-foot baseboards and casing without cutting them in the garage and losing 15 percent of materials.”

That 15 percent is a real number and it lands on the invoice.

Our Time and Materials pricing model makes those line items visible. You see the elevator fees, the extra crew hours for common-area protection, and the trim waste as their own entries on the weekly budget report — not buried in a padded fixed bid. Weekly reports on every project. No end-of-job surprises. For more on the T&M open-book approach, see T&M vs fixed price contracts.

Where Revolution Contractors Fits In

Revolution has been operating in St. Petersburg since 2016 with 20+ W-2 carpenters on payroll. We hold both the residential and commercial unlimited GC licenses (CGC1522463 and CRC1331628), which means we can pull permits on any residential building in Florida and on any commercial building including the 4-story-and-up high-rises that most Pinellas residential GCs cannot touch.

We are a hybrid design-build operation — we coordinate design and construction under one contract, paired with independent architects and designers, so the HOA package, the plumbing plan, the finish selections, and the schedule all move through one project manager. For the wider condo remodel picture, our downtown St. Pete condo remodel guide covers logistics, HOA rhythms, and building-type variation across the market.

Next Step

If you are planning a bathroom remodel in a St. Pete high-rise or beach condo, the fastest way to get real numbers is a walkthrough. We will look at the wet wall, the ceiling condition, the elevator access, and the building’s HOA package requirements, then tell you what we see and what it will cost. Call (727) 888-6161 or request a free estimate — we will be back to you within 48 hours.