St. Petersburg City Council approved two 99-year ground lease agreements Thursday. Mark Ferguson, who owns Ferg’s Sports Bar, will contribute $6 million toward the city’s $7 million purchase of an abandoned railroad corridor. The vote? Unanimous.

The corridor spans nearly a mile. It once belonged to CSX. Now the city will buy it and lease portions back to Ferguson, whose bar has occupied the land for over three decades. Workers will transform roughly .86 miles of unused track into the Booker Creek Trail, a path for walkers and cyclists.

“I’ve been leasing this same piece of property for the last 33 years,” Ferguson said, according to the St. Pete Catalyst. “The railroad will be sold to the city and leased back to us. We can use it for whatever we want for our business.”

City officials view this project as both a recreational space and a way to boost the economy. The trail will connect parts of downtown that continue to grow and change.

Ferguson bought what had been a neighborhood gas station in 1992. He opened his bar there, years before the Tampa Bay Devil Rays played their first game across the street. The modest sports bar grew into one of St. Petersburg’s most recognized spots.

The bar has seen downtown transform. It opened before Major League Baseball arrived. It survived Tropicana Field’s construction, multiple redevelopment proposals around the stadium, and the uncertainty after the Tampa Bay Rays walked away from a new ballpark deal.

This investment positions the sports bar for what comes next, much like his initial gamble on baseball’s arrival. “We’re going to have a lot more business from it,” he said. “There will be apartments and retail built there. Business will be brought to the Trop, EDGE District, and Ferg’s Sports Bar.”

Mayor Ken Welch picked Blake Investment Partners as his preferred developer for the 86-acre Historic Gas Plant District site, but negotiations remain ahead. A future city council could still reject or change the project.

“I think it will give people another option to walk, ride bikes, use scooters,” he said. “We don’t want more cars on the streets. The more people we can get walking and riding bikes in the downtown area the better it is for everybody because we have limited parking.”

Even with one of downtown’s largest parking garages across the street, Ferguson said demand outpaces supply. “It fills up pretty quickly.”

The city expects to close on the railroad property later this month. Construction will take several years.