Mayor Ken Welch is urging the St. Pete City Council to take action to develop the Historic Gas Plant District rather than entering another extended planning period.
Council Member Brandi Gabbard is set to introduce an item to pursue a “planning-first framework” at Thursday’s city council meeting. But in a memo, Welch is urging council members to move forward with proposals after a month-long period of accepting ideas to develop the area around Tropicana Field.
“There are some who believe we should continue to further delay this development,” Mayor Welch said in the memo. “We should move forward to fulfill the decades-long promise of equitable and beneficial development of the site.”
Welch stated that if any of the development proposals “meets or exceeds the level of community impact and benefit that the Hines/Rays agreement entailed, then we should take the opportunity.”
In the memo, Welch argues that the community has already stated what beneficial impacts should be expected for the area, citing jobs, housing, economic opportunity and “honoring the promises made to the community.”
Welch noted that it has been almost 40 years since the Gas Plant community was uprooted in the name of progress. The mayor also told the council that during the now-defunct Rays agreement, approved by council members during the summer of 2024, they had already outlined and agreed with commitments from developers that should be met.
While the city council passed the agreement with the Rays in 2024, at the time, the proposal was narrowly approved, with three council members voting against it and five voting for it, including Council Member Gabbard.
Since July 2024, Ed Montanari and John Muhammad left the City Council. Montanari voted for the 2024 deal, and Muhammad voted against. The Rays deal expired last year after Hurricane Milton damaged Tropicana Field in 2024.
“During the termination of the agreement with Hines/Rays, we clearly identified parcels that could proceed quickly into development for affordable housing and a new Woodson African American Museum of Florida,” Welch’s memo reads, citing multiple planning efforts since 2016 done by the city. “The planning has been extensive.”
Welch asserted that the city is not asking developers to define a new vision for the land, and instead is asking them to meet the standards that were discussed and outlined in the Rays agreement.
“With respect to timing, pausing all progress for yet another planning exercise — after proposals have been submitted, risks repeating a familiar and painful pattern for this community,” Welch said, noting that “further inaction” does not serve the public or the descendants of the families displaced decades ago.
Recently, Ron Diner, a former executive at Raymond James Affordable Housing, told 10 Tampa Bay News that the current approach to redevelop the Historic Gas Plant District was all wrong.
Diner said that the city of St. Pete could be losing out on close to a billion dollars in long-term public value by selling the Gas Plant District as a whole, rather than planning out the land itself and selling it in parcels.
“The proposal is for the city to sign an agreement with one developer and sell them the entire parcel of land. Once that happens, the developer is in charge. We’re not in charge,” Diner said.
Council Member Brandi Gabbard and Mayor Ken Welch are both running as candidates in the mayoral race of the city of St. Petersburg this year.