City officials have recommended that four of eight proposals for a reimagined Historic Gas Plant District, currently home to Tropicana Field, advance to the next phase of evaluation. They will host a public meeting with those development teams this month. Photo: City of St. Petersburg.
St. Petersburg residents will have several opportunities to offer their thoughts on shortlisted Historic Gas Plant redevelopment proposals throughout the spring and summer.
The city announced a tentative timeline for the proposal selection process on Thursday afternoon, following what Mayor Ken Welch recently called a “slight adjustment” to incorporate additional planning. Staff will begin working on the first phase of an Urban Land Institute (ULI) study this month.
Welch’s administration will also host a public meeting with shortlisted developers at The Coliseum in April. City officials have recommended that four of eight visions for a reimagined Gas Plant, currently home to Tropicana Field, advance to the next phase of evaluation.
The public meeting will provide an opportunity for residents to meet with prospective redevelopment teams and ask questions about their proposals. A 30-day “input session” to gather additional community feedback will follow.
“Additional stakeholder engagement meetings may be announced,” states the release.
Administrators and directors will further analyze the shortlisted proposals in May, following the 30-day public input session. The city will also open an application portal for a Community Benefits Advisory Council (CBAC) Project Committee next month.
The CBAC is a non-partisan, resident-led advisory board that helps ensure developments receiving significant public subsidies provide positive socioeconomic impacts. Suggested requirements include contracting with small and minority-owned businesses, hiring apprentices and disadvantaged workers, providing affordable or workforce housing, promoting environmental resiliency and sustainability, and supporting public art, health, education, and technology initiatives.
The city council will select new CBAC Project Committee members at a workshop in May. Thursday’s announcement also states that “additional information will be provided regarding the selection process” that month.
Welch plans to select a proposal in June, following a “comprehensive review” and “multiple public input sessions.” The CBAC and city council will then formally vet those initial plans “in alignment with our previously established procedures.”
In July, the CBAC will host separate public and private meetings regarding the selected proposal. Welch and his administration will use the resulting feedback to begin negotiations with the development team.
“Next steps following the July 2026 CBAC meetings will be announced later this year,” states the announcement. “Additional community engagement opportunities may be scheduled.”
Timing for the final step, a term sheet, could hinge on the ULI study. In early February, the council, in a 6-2 vote, approved a resolution urging Welch to “pause any action” related to the proposal process and conduct additional planning.
“I disagree with that need,” Welch said a week before the timeline announcement. “We’ve been planning for more than a decade; we’ve done a lot of planning since then.”
The ULI report will include “an analysis and aggregation of previous studies, community feedback, and other research,” according to the announcement. Welch reiterated his opposition to selling the land to the highest bidder.
“The promise was that there would be economic opportunity for all, including the minority community that gave all they had in the name of progress,” he said.
Council members must approve a contract with the developer that Welch plans to select in July. Municipal elections loom in November.
Welch believes voters should consider if he is working to move the Gas Plant’s rebirth forward, as he pledged on the campaign trail in 2021. “Did I honor the promises I made as a candidate and then as a mayor? That answer is clearly yes,” he said, referencing the previous deal negated by former Tampa Bay Rays owner Stuart Sternberg.
“I think that folks have a lot more to look at than just whether a selection has been made by a certain date,” Welch concluded. “It’s looking at the totality of our efforts to bring this to the right conclusion.”
Share Your News with Us
To share news with the Power Broker, connect with reachout@powerbrokermagazine.com. To sign up for our twice-weekly e-newsletter, visit www.powerbrokermagazine.com; and to join our online conversation, subscribe to our YouTube channel at Power Broker Media Group – YouTube.
