St. Pete mayor to engage community on Historic Gas Plant District Redevelopment plans
By Breanne Williams
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Jul 6, 2022

St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch will host the first in a series of community conversations on July 12 to gather public input on priorities for Historic Gas Plant District Redevelopment.

The first community engagement meeting will be held at the Foundation for a Healthy St. Pete located in the Lakeview Shopping Center at 2333 34th St. S on July 12 from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. The input provided by attendees will be used to inform Welch’s administration’s decisions as they craft a new request for proposals for the 86-acre site redevelopment that will be released in August.

“Equitable redevelopment of the Historic Gas Plant District must respond to current economic conditions, challenges and questions facing our St. Petersburg community,” Welch said in a statement. “Public engagement is a key component in ensuring we are responding to residents’ needs.”

The session will open with remarks from Welch and then the public can participate in “subject matter expert-led conversations addressing common themes about redevelopment priorities including but not limited to equitable economic opportunities, affordable and workforce housing, economic impact, jobs, sustainability, equity and community impact,” according to the city.

Each session will use the same public engagement model that Welch used in his original community conversations at the end of 2021, prior to his inauguration. Later sessions will be July 19 at the St. Petersburg College-Gibbs campus and July 28 at University of South Florida St Pete.

On June 29, Welch announced he was throwing out the existing redevelopment proposals for Tropicana Field and would be seeking new ideas for the property. Welch previously told the Tampa Bay Business Journal that he has “heard from countless residents who feel that there is plenty of development happening in St. Petersburg and that we must focus on compatibility with our core principles.”

Welch said the new RFP in August will reflect a post-pandemic world better than the original did and changed the name for the RFP. Rather than referencing Tropicana Field, the new process is named after the Gas Plant district.

The city’s timeline shows plans to have pre-proposal development meetings with prospective developers in mid-August; an internal review will occur between November and December, and the mayor aims to choose a developer by the end of the year. Once selected, a term sheet is anticipated to be completed by May 2023, and a development agreement is scheduled to go before city council by October 2023 at the latest.