Condo Conversion Construction: What a GC Does on Apartment-to-Condo Projects in Florida
Most apartment-to-condo conversions in Florida are developer-led projects. The legal side — declarations, condominium registration with the State of Florida, HOA formation, tenant-relocation compliance, sales contracts — sits with attorneys and the developer’s title team. This guide covers the other half: what a general contractor actually does on the construction side of a condo conversion.
If you’re a developer scoping a conversion in Pinellas County, or a buyer evaluating a recently-converted building, this is the work that determines whether the conversion is buildable, code-compliant, and finishable on a realistic schedule. We’re a St. Petersburg general contractor — Revolution Contractors — and our condo work is the build-out side of conversions plus individual-unit remodels in already-titled buildings. We don’t lead conversions as the developer GC, and we’ll flag where that line sits as we go.
What’s NOT in this guide (attorney + developer scope)
Before we get into the construction work, here’s what a general contractor does not handle on a condo conversion. If you’re looking for guidance on these, talk to a Florida condo attorney or your title team:
- Drafting and recording the declaration of condominium under Florida Statute Chapter 718 (Florida Condominium Act)
- Filing for state condominium registration with the Division of Florida Condominiums, Timeshares, and Mobile Homes
- HOA / condo-association formation and bylaws drafting
- Tenant-relocation legal compliance (Florida and local jurisdiction notices, right-of-first-refusal periods)
- Sales contracts, prospectus drafting, and Section 718 disclosure packages
- Title work and individual-unit deed preparation
What follows is the construction side only. Our scope as a general contractor starts when the legal structure is in place and a permit can be pulled.
Change-of-use code upgrades — what triggers when occupancy type shifts
When Pinellas County rezones a building from rental apartments to condominiums, the building permit treats the project as a change of use. That single classification shift cascades through the Florida Building Code (FBC), the Florida Accessibility Code, and life-safety codes, and it’s what determines whether the conversion budget is $150 per square foot or $400 per square foot.
The big code surfaces a general contractor coordinates on a change-of-use conversion in St. Petersburg:
- FBC structural review. The current Florida Building Code (2023 cycle, with FBC 2026 adoption staged) treats the building as if it’s being permitted today. Walls that passed inspection 30 years ago may need fire-rated demising assemblies between newly-titled units. We bring in the engineer-of-record early because retrofitting demising walls inside an occupied or partially-occupied building drives schedule.
- NFPA 13 sprinkler retrofit. Most pre-1990s rental buildings in St. Pete were built without sprinklers. The change-of-use permit usually triggers a full NFPA 13 sprinkler retrofit. That’s a sprinkler subcontractor scope, but the GC schedules the riser cuts, ceiling drops, and finish patch around it.
- Florida Accessibility Code + ADA Title III. Common-area path-of-travel needs to meet current ADA standards on lobbies, mailrooms, elevator approach, pool deck, fitness room. Per Jeremy on the constraint reality: “Sometimes ceilings are concrete so we can’t add lighting unless we drop a sleeper system for thin wafer can lights and fans.” That’s an ADA-adjacent issue too — concrete-deck buildings limit how much you can re-route ductwork or run new lighting circuits without dropping ceilings.
- Type-of-construction reclassification. Some buildings cross from Type V (combustible) into Type II (non-combustible) treatment under the current FBC, which can require additional fire-rated assemblies at corridors and stair towers.
The design-coordination work here lives with the engineer-of-record and the developer’s architect. We don’t carry designers on staff; we coordinate with the design team the developer brings, run the permit application through Pinellas County or the City of St. Petersburg Building Department, and sequence the field work.
Common-area renovation — lobbies, mailrooms, elevator vestibules, pool decks
Common areas are where conversion projects almost always overrun budget. The reason is that they’re occupied during construction. Owners are moving in as units close, which means finishes have to be protected, work has to happen in scheduled windows, and trades have to share elevator and stair access with residents.
Per Jeremy’s framing on the operational reality: “Condos have unique challenges like protecting floors, walls, and elevators in common areas and coordinating trash removal and material deliveries.” On a conversion build-out, that protection scope multiplies. Every newly-titled owner’s move-in is a finish-protection event.
Specific common-area scopes a GC handles on a Florida condo conversion:
- Lobby refresh to current FBC finishes + ADA path-of-travel
- Mailroom retrofit to current USPS Cluster Box Unit (CBU) specs for new construction
- Elevator vestibule fire separation (often a code-trigger from the change-of-use review)
- Pool deck + pool barrier to current FBC pool-barrier code (Florida-specific)
- Fitness room buildout if the developer is adding amenity to support the sales price
- Corridor finishes + signage to current ADA wayfinding
The hidden cost on common-area work is material yield loss. Per Jeremy: “If the elevator’s longest dimension is 10 feet, we can’t take 12-foot baseboards and casing without cutting them in the garage and losing 15 percent of materials — as long as we communicate that it’s the best way logistically, it is what it is.” Budget the 15%. We surface it in our Time & Materials weekly budget reports rather than absorb it into a fixed bid that hides the loss.
Revolution runs 20+ in-house W-2 carpenters (not a paper contractor with day-labor crews), which matters for common-area work specifically. The same carpenters protecting your lobby trim today are running the elevator vestibule fire-separation install next week. Continuity reduces damage events, which reduces the punch list.
Unit-level systems separation — HVAC, electrical, water, gas
The single most cost-determinant question on a condo conversion build-out is: was the original apartment building plumbed and metered as one unit or as individual units?
If the building was already on individual unit meters with stub-outs to each unit, the systems-separation scope is mostly inspection and certification. If it was on master meters with shared risers, the conversion requires a per-unit retrofit, and that’s a structural-impact scope.
What separation typically requires:
- HVAC zoning per unit under the Florida Building Code Mechanical chapter. Master-system buildings may need individual condensers or VRF zones added on a roof or balcony pad.
- Sub-metered electrical per NEC 220. A new meter stack and panel feeds per unit. The utility service entrance often has to be upsized — this is an FPL coordination item.
- Individual water-line stub-outs. Per Jeremy on the high-rise reality: “Plumbing lines in a 20-story building can’t be moved without major approval.” On a conversion, that constraint determines whether the kitchen layout in the original floor plan is the kitchen layout in the converted unit. Movable risers are rare; designing around the existing stack is the norm.
- Individual gas meters where applicable (less common in Pinellas multifamily; more common in older downtown buildings).
- Riser diagrams + MEP coordination with the engineer-of-record. The MEP design is owned by the engineer; the GC coordinates the build sequence so trades aren’t tripping over each other in occupied common areas.
Important framing: a GC doesn’t design the systems-separation strategy — the developer’s design team does. We build it, sequence it, coordinate the inspections, and run the punch list. If you’re scoping the engineering side, that conversation belongs upstream of us.
Pinellas-specific permit coordination
Pinellas County and the City of St. Petersburg both touch a condo conversion permit. Which jurisdiction is primary depends on the building’s address. Incorporated St. Pete properties go through the City Building Department; unincorporated Pinellas goes through the County. Either way, the permit class is change-of-use commercial, not residential remodel.
Realistic permit timeline expectations in St. Petersburg right now (2026):
- Initial submittal to plan-review return: 4 to 8 weeks for a clean submittal with engineer-of-record sign-off. Comments and resubmits add 2 to 4 weeks per cycle.
- Permit issued to start of construction: 1 to 2 weeks after pickup, depending on subcontractor mobilization.
- Inspection cadence: rough-in inspections at framing, MEP, fire-stop, and pre-finish. Final certificate-of-occupancy (CO) is reissued per converted unit, not for the building as a whole. That’s a Florida-specific quirk on conversions and it determines the sales-closing schedule.
Per Jeremy on HOA permit-application practice (which kicks in on the back end after the conversion is filed and the association is formed): “Most HOAs require an application and want to see the permit before work starts. Adds a week or two but mostly an annoyance. Insurance requirements are standard, liability and workers’ comp.”
The permit-coordination workload on a conversion is roughly 3 to 5x a single-unit remodel because the change-of-use scope touches structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire-protection, and accessibility reviews simultaneously. Revolution sequences that work week-by-week and reports cadence in the open-book Time & Materials weekly budget report. Clients see exactly which line items are in inspection vs. in active build vs. in waiting-on-permit status. No surprise billing at month-end.
When you’d hire us vs. when you wouldn’t
Honest scope-fence on Revolution Contractors and condo conversion work in Pinellas County:
You’d hire us when:
- You’re the developer or sponsor on a conversion and you want a Pinellas-local GC for the build-out side — common-area renovation, unit-systems separation, code upgrades, finish work, individual CO coordination
- You’re converting a building that falls at or under four stories — within our standard general-contractor license scope
- You want Time & Materials open-book billing with weekly budget reports rather than a fixed-bid number that hides the 15% material yield loss and the change-of-use code-trigger surprises
- You want an in-house W-2 carpentry crew running the finish work rather than a rotating cast of day-labor sub-tier crews. See individual-unit remodels in already-titled buildings for how we structure occupied-building remodel work
- You’re a buyer in a recently-converted building looking at post-conversion individual-unit remodels. That’s our standard condo-remodel scope. See condo HOA + elevator logistics guide, downtown St. Pete condo remodel guide, and the downtown condo project list for buildings we work in
You wouldn’t hire us when:
- You need a developer-side GC to lead a conversion as the prime contractor on a building over four stories. That requires a commercial unlimited GC license scope we don’t pursue, and you’re better served by a commercial-only firm
- The project is an eight-figure RFP-bid commercial conversion. We don’t bid RFPs and we don’t take eight-figure jobs (that’s a stated company posture, not capacity)
- You’re looking for legal, declaration, or condominium-registration work. That’s attorney scope (see the scope-fence at the top of this guide)
If you’re not sure where your project falls, the cheapest call to make is the qualifying call. (727) 888-6161. We’ll tell you within 15 minutes whether your project is in our scope or whether we’d refer you out. That’s the same Time & Materials honesty we apply to every line item once a project starts. For commercial-side build-out scope on smaller conversions, see also commercial-side build-out scope on smaller conversions.