After three decades on Wall Street, Tommy Del Zoppo traded in the Big Apple for the Sunshine State.

In 2016, he helped found New Hotel Collection, which has hotel ownership stakes in Florida’s Indian Rocks Beach and Indian Shores and Sevierville, Tenn.

Del Zoppo, now New Hotel Collection’s chief executive officer, is steering the company through a major expansion of the historic Cordova Inn in downtown St. Petersburg. Once completed next year, the hotel will have 95 rooms and 53,700 square feet. The new design, by Place Architecture, was inspired by the exterior look of the historic hotel. New amenities will include a rooftop bar and a restaurant.

Del Zoppo spoke with the Tampa Bay Times about the future of tourism in Tampa Bay and the need to balance growth with affordable housing. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

New Hotel Collection purchased the Cordova Inn property during the height of the pandemic, in 2020. Why?

People thought we were absolutely crazy. But they had just built a $90 million pier down here. And you could just tell by the amount of people coming for day trips, the amount of people visiting St. Petersburg for the museums, for the food, for the pier — you could see things changing. The person who stays at our properties on the beaches are much different than the person that comes to St. Petersburg. And at that time, there wasn’t a lot of hotels in the area. And we certainly thought that by buying the Cordova, and then buying the property next to it, we’ve capitalized on what was happening in downtown St. Pete. What we thought was people were coming and going on beach trips, but there wasn’t an affordable place for them to stay for two, three, four days. By purchasing the Cordova and the property next door, we were capitalizing on that dynamic shifting.

Now, the pandemic was a complete showstopper for everyone. People told us we were absolutely crazy but we never flinched from our vision. It never deviated from that. We were very, very lucky in that we knew what it could be in the future. And I think our long-term vision is why that has been successful for us. I think in our first-quarter earnings this year our biggest driver on a revenue basis has been the Cordova hotel.

Who is your customer? Is the focus on domestic travelers, international travelers or both?

Prior to the pandemic, and prior to the Cordova hotel, 75% were domestic and 25% were international. That international travel component is starting to come back, but is at a very, very low percentage. Most, I’d say 99%, of the people who come and stay at our hotels are domestic. Our goal at the New Hotel Collection is a three-star hotel with five-star experience. We look for that middle lane, so to speak. We know what we are, we know now after five years who our customer is and who we need to target. And it has been very successful for us. You have to stick true to who you are. When we went to build the Cordova, we still had that vision of providing an affordable place that is a boutique experience for our customers but at a much more reasonable price point. We have vigilantly stayed very close to that core value.

Nationwide, the labor shortage has hit the hospitality industry hard. Is that something New Hotel Collection has had to overcome?

We’ve done better than average. When it comes to people who are working in our cleaning area, keeping our rooms up, that is typically where the biggest hole is. How do we fix that? We overpay for those positions. And we treat everyone in the company the same, whether you are the CEO or in the maintenance department. We are a very flat organization. We are having an appreciation party for staff at our Harbourside Resort (in Indian Rocks Beach) tonight. I think that most employees — and of course it is also about the money — want to feel valued. They want to feel like they are being heard. When people leave jobs, when they hop from job to job, they’re leaving not so much because of the money but because they don’t feel part of an organization. The way we overcome that is we pay people really well and we appreciate them.

What is something New York City could learn from St. Petersburg, and that St. Petersburg could learn from New York?

I think New Yorkers could learn a little bit more about patience. A little bit more about kindness. In New York, you are just in a complete hamster wheel. You’re not taking the time to appreciate what is happening that day. Here, you’re outside, you’re doing activities, connected to your environment. Consciousness could be the word? I think New York could learn a little better consciousness from St. Petersburg.

I’ve seen a huge change in the attitudes from St. Petersburg because there is so much influence from New York, from the northeast down here now. They really have to take better restaurants from New York. I’m almost going to open up an Asian place down here because you just can’t get good Chinese food. I still think we’re kind of behind the curve on that. And I’m going to get in trouble for saying it. People think the food down here is really great — and it has come a long way. But if we could take some of the international cuisine from New York and move it down here, I think that is something St. Pete could learn.

As local agencies prepare their budgets for the next financial year, is there anything you would like to see them prioritize?

Climate is very important. I also absolutely believe that there has to be an understanding of infrastructure. So, what does that include? Public transportation — which I think they are behind the curve on, to be honest. Things are growing so fast. Each week, there are new apartment buildings going up. But there has to be a thought process for affordable housing. I think it lies within City Council and the business community to understand that if we are going to allow all these development firms to come in — all of a sudden St. Petersburg and Tampa are the hottest real estate markets in the country — you have the leverage to say, “Hey, you can build this but 25% has to be affordable housing.” If you don’t do that, then you are going to lose the flavor of old Florida very quickly.

Public transportation is important, of course, the environment is up there. But I think one card where you can enact change is the city governments in Tampa and St. Petersburg and everywhere along the west coast in Florida have really got to understand and be careful that you’re not pushing out the middle-class person because there is no affordable housing. Yes, it is great that you are growing and that St. Petersburg and Tampa are on the map. But you have to be careful. There has to be a balance. Before we greenlight all these projects, the City Council has got to say: A portion of this has got to be for affordable housing.