A 1925 Romanesque Revival church turned concert hall where a woman in a flowing dress has been seen sweeping through the breezeway
253 5th Avenue N, St. Petersburg, FL 33701
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Event ticket prices vary; see website for current programming
Access
Wheelchair OK
Historic downtown building; accessible entrance available
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1925 · National Register of Historic Places · Romanesque Revival Architecture · Batchelder Tilework · Arts and Crafts Heritage
The structure at 253 5th Avenue North in downtown St. Petersburg was built in 1925 as the First Church of Christ, Scientist. Its architect, Howard Lovewell Cheney, designed it in a Romanesque Revival style, taking inspiration from Filippo Brunelleschi's 15th-century hospital in Florence. The George A. Fuller Construction Company handled construction. The interior retained a 1926 Skinner pipe organ and handmade Arts and Crafts tilework created by Ernest A. Batchelder, a California ceramicist whose tiles were prized across the country during the craftsman period.
The Christian Science congregation eventually relocated. In 1998, the building was acquired and converted into the Palladium Theater while preserving as much of the original fabric as possible — including the Skinner organ, the Batchelder tiles, and the basilican proportions of the auditorium. The renovated theater offered 880 seats in what became the Hough Concert Hall.
In 2007, the theater was donated to St. Petersburg College, which has operated it since as the Palladium at St. Petersburg College. The building is a contributing property in the North Shore Historic District, added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 20, 2003.
Sources
The haunting at the Palladium at St. Petersburg College centers on a single repeated account: a female figure in a flowing dress seen moving through the building's breezeway. The description varies slightly in different tellings — some refer to the figure as the 'lady in red,' a designation the Northeast Journal used when listing the Palladium among St. Petersburg's supernatural sites — but the core report is consistent.
The theater's own executive director, Paul Wilborn, acknowledged the ghost in a piece published on the Palladium's website. Wilborn noted he had not personally witnessed the apparition during his tenure but treated the tradition with the matter-of-fact acceptance of someone who has run a historic building long enough to know that staff and visitors sometimes see things they cannot explain.
The building's history as a church from 1925 through the late 20th century adds a particular resonance to the reports. No named individual is attached to the figure, and no historical incident at the address has been publicly connected to the apparition. It remains a single-phenomenon haunting in a building whose primary identity is as a working concert hall.
The Palladium at St. Petersburg College is an 880-seat concert hall in a 1925 Romanesque Revival former church, featuring the original 1926 Skinner organ and Batchelder Arts and Crafts tilework preserved through a 1998 renovation. It hosts classical concerts, jazz, world music, and other programming as part of St. Petersburg College's cultural offerings.
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