After years of vacancy, South St. Pete stretch of MLK gets a new look

The $3.5 million project aims to bring local businesses and community spaces to a historically underinvested area.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A stretch of MLK Boulevard in South St. Pete is getting a new look, with old buildings being reimagined as businesses and community spaces.

The developer behind the project says this is about bringing investment back without pushing out the people who already live there.

In the Roser Park neighborhood of South St. Pete, some buildings along MLK sat quiet, vacant for years.

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John Barkett is the local developer behind the Looking Glass Initiative.

Barkett is choosing this neighborhood that has been subject to underinvestment for decades, while neighborhoods just up the street are booming.

“16-year discrepancy in life expectancy from here to Central Avenue; we’re talking nine blocks, 10 blocks,” Barkett said.

Miko Seymour is the president of the Roser Park Historic Neighborhood Association.

“Even if it’s just this one block, we’re sort of finally getting someone or a group of people who are saying ‘yes, we see the potential here’,” Seymour said.

In just a few months, Miko’s coffee shop, Café Ora, will be opening in this space, one of several businesses coming to this block.

Barkett said the project is intentionally focused on local and Black-owned businesses. The development includes a 600-square-foot incubator space created for a Black woman-owned business that could not afford a typical larger storefront.

“We’ve got another space down where we’ve got another female black-owned business,” Barkett said.

Barkett says he’s working to make this project equitable for the neighborhood.

“It can’t be gentrification,” Barkett said.

“It’s going to bring up values for everybody. But we’re going to do it in a way that we’re not displacing people. We’re encouraging black and local businesses here,” he said.

Something Seymour says the neighborhood is encouraging. 

“We’re for sure not going to let anyone just come down here and do whatever it is that they want to do. At least not without us making a bunch of noise. But honestly, this project has been so harmonious with the neighborhood,” Seymour said.

For Barkett, it’s simple.

“Looking Glass — it’s not rocket science. It’s all the little things, all the little pieces that help string the community back together, that are really what make it work,” Barkett said.

The project is estimated to cost $3.5 million. The developers are asking the city for $325,000 through its Community Redevelopment Agency, or CRA, to help fund the project.

The project includes about 13,000 square feet of historic retail space, a community courtyard and plans for a community teaching garden.