{"id":298883,"date":"2026-06-07T03:18:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T03:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/298883\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T03:18:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T03:18:10","slug":"plans-advance-for-science-center-transformation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/298883\/","title":{"rendered":"Plans advance for science center transformation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>June 6, 2026 &#8211; Plans to transform the former <a href=\"https:\/\/sciencecenter.ai\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">St. Petersburg Science Center<\/a> at 7701 22nd Ave. N. into a $25 million <a href=\"https:\/\/aicoe.foundation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Artificial Intelligence Center of Excellence<\/a> cleared a key milestone as the St. Pete Development Review Commission unanimously approved the proposal. The redevelopment will more than double the size of the long-vacant facility and create a hub for artificial intelligence education, workforce development and entrepreneurship, anchored by the AI Village, which will host student field trips, camps and hands-on learning experiences. Additional plans include a planetarium, production studios, conference space, offices and community gathering areas designed to support innovation and lifelong learning.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/stpetecatalyst.com\/zaps\" class=\"btn btn-aqua\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">More Zaps<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/stpetecatalyst.com\" class=\"btn btn-aqua\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Frontpage<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"June 6, 2026 &#8211; Plans to transform the former St. Petersburg Science Center at 7701 22nd Ave. N.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-298883","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\/298883","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=298883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}