St. Petersburg Mayor Kenneth T. Welch will deliver his 2026 State of the City address today at 10 a.m. at the Palladium in downtown St. Petersburg.<\/p>\n
For business owners, developers and investors, the speech is a check-in on the city\u2019s next growth phase. Welch has told TBBW<\/a> the city is seeing record interest from tech founders, corporate relocations and national investors who see St. Petersburg as \u201cthe new center for tech, fintech and next generation investment.\u201d<\/p>\n Welch has also pointed to transportation as the region\u2019s biggest long-term constraint. \u201cIt\u2019s really our last Achilles heel,\u201d he said in a November interview with TBBW.<\/p>\n READ THE NOVEMBER INTERVIEW<\/a><\/p>\n Infrastructure and resilience are expected to be a central focus. Welch said the city plans to put a $600 million resilience bond before voters to accelerate stormwater and sewer upgrades following recent storms. \u201cInfrastructure wasn\u2019t built to handle the level of impact we\u2019re seeing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Welch has also framed the future of the 86-acre Gas Plant District as a defining economic project for St. Petersburg. <\/p>\n He told TBBW the city intends to begin developing the site after 2028, with about 60 acres of buildable land once the Tropicana Field dome footprint is removed. \u201cIt\u2019s the biggest opportunity for economic progress in the city,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The Palladium is at 253 5th Ave N. Seating is limited.<\/p>\n Residents can watch live on the City of St. Petersburg\u2019s Facebook<\/a> page, YouTube<\/a> channel and at stpete.org\/TV<\/a>. The speech will also air on Frontier channel 20, Spectrum channel 641 and WOW! Cable channel 15.<\/p>\n Parking near the venue is limited. The Museum of the American Arts & Crafts Movement garage at 350 3rd St. N. charges $1 per hour. The Sundial garage at 117 2nd St. N. charges $1 for up to four hours.<\/p>\n TBBW will update this story with highlights from Welch\u2019s remarks once the address concludes.<\/p>\n Stay Informed<\/p>\n \n Stay up to date on Tampa Bay business news, executive profiles and the companies shaping the region.\n <\/p>\n \t\tPost navigation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St. Petersburg Mayor Kenneth T. Welch will deliver his 2026 State of the City address today at 10…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159868,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1571,5751,7143,178,740,31740,2161,39076,596,202,204,203,199,201,200,1703,52537,17357,40355,76634,1798],"class_list":{"0":"post-159867","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-affordable-housing","9":"tag-business-relocation","10":"tag-economic-development","11":"tag-economic-growth","12":"tag-economy","13":"tag-gas-plant-district","14":"tag-government","15":"tag-infrastructure-development","16":"tag-pinellas-county","17":"tag-st-pete","18":"tag-st-pete-headlines","19":"tag-st-pete-news","20":"tag-st-petersburg","21":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","22":"tag-st-petersburg-news","23":"tag-tampa-bay-business","24":"tag-tampa-bay-business-news-and-top-stories","25":"tag-tampa-bay-development","26":"tag-tampa-bay-infrastructure","27":"tag-tech-migration","28":"tag-transportation"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}