PORT RICHEY - The city's Community Redevelopment Agency is set to vote tonight on the proposed purchase of a dilapidated, crime-ridden mobile home park.

City officials want to buy the 1-acre riverfront property, valued at $622,752 last year, and send in the bulldozers as part of a renewed effort to clean up the blighted neighborhood.

If approved, the purchase will be paid for with CRA money. The fund, which gets nearly half of the city and county property taxes paid in the region , is expected to be more than $2 million this fiscal year.

Two weeks ago, the redevelopment agency, composed of the mayor and city council members, voted to get independent appraisals of the property.

Straddling the corner of River Gulf Road and Grand Boulevard, the mobile home park is owned by Port Richey Mobile Home Park LLC of St. Petersburg. It is not affiliated with the Port Richey Mobile Home Park on U.S. 19 South.

Known as the "Spider's Web" to police and neighbors, the no-name park has for years been the epicenter of drug-dealing, vagrancy and prostitution in the east end.

Occupancy has dwindled to a handful of renters, and city efforts to get the owners to clean up the property have been largely unsuccessful.

Meanwhile, a coalition of city council members and residents has banded together to drive out the vagrants and criminals and to improve the neighborhood's image.

Tonight's meeting begins at 7 in city hall, 6333 Ridge Road.

Reporter Christian M. Wade can be reached at (727) 815-1082 or cwade@tampatrib.com.