Council Member Driscoll also expressed concern, saying, \u201cWe subsidize the Pier right now. We don\u2019t need to take on something else to subsidize.\u201d<\/p>\n
City staff and consultants emphasized that the plan is not intended to be built all at once, but rather implemented in phases over 10-20 years, potentially supported by a combination of grants and public-private partnerships.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not looking to pay for it all at once. It\u2019s going to be a phased approach,\u201d said City Development Administrator David Wirth. \u201cThere are a lot of grant dollars out there for ports.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the debate, officials stressed that the proposal remains conceptual and does not represent a final decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere has been zero input from the City Council and administration at this time,\u201d said Driscoll. \u201cWe are simply taking in the results of the first part of developing a plan. What we will end up with will look very different.\u201d<\/p>\n
Council Member Mike Harting described the plan as a \u201cdream board,\u201d reflecting early ideas rather than a defined path forward.<\/p>\n
Moffatt & Nichol is expected to continue refining the proposal before presenting a finalized version to the St. Petersburg City Council later this year, where a broader discussion will take place on the future of the port and its role in the city\u2019s waterfront.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Council Member Driscoll also expressed concern, saying, \u201cWe subsidize the Pier right now. We don\u2019t need to take…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-202863","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\/202863","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=202863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}