{"id":161403,"date":"2026-02-19T17:06:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T17:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/161403\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T17:06:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T17:06:18","slug":"state-of-the-city-highlights-affordable-housing-gains-and-major-infrastructure-plans-for-st-pete","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/161403\/","title":{"rendered":"State of the City highlights affordable housing gains and major infrastructure plans for St. Pete"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Strengthening infrastructure, accelerating hurricane recovery, expanding affordable housing, and advancing the long-awaited redevelopment of the Historic Gas Plant District were among the major themes of Mayor Ken Welch\u2019s 2026 State of the City address.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">\u201cStorms do not define St. Petersburg. How we recover defines who we are,\u201d Welch said Wednesday at The Palladium in downtown St. Pete, describing 2025 as a year of recovery following Hurricanes Helene and Milton and 2026 as a year focused on resilience, equity, and forward progress.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Welch framed the city\u2019s work around his Five Pillars for Progress: Housing Opportunities for All; Neighborhood Health &amp; Safety; Environment, Infrastructure &amp; Resilience; Equitable Development, The Arts &amp; Business Opportunities; and Education &amp; Youth Opportunities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Here are the key highlights from 2025:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Strengthening infrastructure, accelerating hurricane recovery, expanding affordable housing, and advancing the long-awaited redevelopment of the Historic Gas Plant&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-161403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161403","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=161403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}