ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The City of St. Petersburg wants to build a new trail on unused railroad tracks in downtown and will use a $6 million lease for Ferg’s Sports Bar to fund the $7 million land purchase from CSX.

“This will be a brand new trail,” said Cheryl Stacks, Transportation Manager. “It’s called the Booker Creek Trail.”

The section of rail corridor the city wants to purchase is .86 miles in length, between 5th Avenue North and 1st Avenue South, totaling about 7.8 acres. Part of those railroad tracks cut right through the Ferg’s Sports Bar property. The owner, Mark Ferguson, has offered $6 million to lease those tracks for 99 years, along with a section in a gravel lot he owns across Central Avenue, which was approved by the city council last Thursday.  

“We keep our property all together,” he said. “We want to keep using it for gathering of World Cup, baseball, concerts (and) football.”

The city will use a tunnel which runs under 1st Avenue South to a sidewalk alongside the Ferg’s property to Central Avenue to connect the new Booker Creek Trail. Once complete, the Booker Creek Trail will connect to the Historic Gas Plant District and the Pinellas Trail.

“It’s so exciting to have this trail come right next to Ferg’s and to cross and go north to 5th Avenue North,” said Ferguson. “That’s going to bring a lot more bikers, scooters, walkers. Get people off the coach and get them down here to the EDGE District.”

Stacks said it has been about a decade since the city last did a trail acquisition.

“It’s not often that we get an opportunity to expand our trail system and acquire property to do so,” she said. “So this is huge for us. We haven’t had a big trail expansion in St. Petersburg in a lot of years.”

The city must close on the land purchase from CSX by the end of July or go back to city council for an extension. Stacks estimated it will take between 3-to-5 years to build the new trail.

“It could take a few years for us to go ahead and identify the funding to design the project and build a project,” she said. “Something that we’re looking forward to. We’ve had this trail system on the books for quite a while.”

Ferguson said he does not plan to build any permanent structures on the leased land because of a reverter clause for the potential reactivation of the rail service.

“We would not want to build a big high-rise on it, 200 apartments, and then the railroad would come back in and say, ‘Hey, we’re putting light rail through there. You’ve got to get rid of the building,’” he said. “Down the road, we might decide to build a small building on it. We’re not sure.”  

Stacks said the reverter clause in the lease is a standard requirement as part of rail-to-trail acquisitions.

“I’m not aware of any trail in the country that had to revert back to a rail,” she said. “It’s a very unlikely opportunity. So I think we’re in good standing and good footing to proceed with the trail and know that it’s going to be there for a while.”

The Booker Creek Trail will provide new recreational space for residents and an economic boost for the area, according to Stacks. The transportation manager said the city would not have been able to afford the land purchase without the public-private partnership with Ferguson.

“It’s a win-win for the community, for the city, and for Ferg’s,” said Ferguson.