ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 After years of planning and a few false starts, St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch is expected to announce his pick for the proposal to redevelop the Historic Gas Plant District Thursday.<\/p>\n
According to Spectrum Bay News 9\u2019s partner newspaper the Tampa Bay Times report he\u2019s chosen \u2018The Burg Bid\u2019 from Blake Investment Partners. Neither the city nor Blake has confirmed the deal, but \u2018The Burg Bid\u2019 made the shortlist of four proposals that could shape the future of the Gas Plant District.<\/p>\n
According to information on the city\u2019s web site, this would be an $8 billion project. It would include more than 3,600 affordable and workforce housing units at the site and throughout the city.<\/p>\n
There would also be a permanent home for the Woodson African American Museum of Florida and the largest new city park in 119 years. According to the proposal, the only public funds Blake would ask for are Community Reinvest Act dollars to build that park and new public infrastructure.<\/p>\n
Robin Davidov with the League of Women Voters of the St. Petersburg Area said members have been following the redevelopment process, and Davidov said they supported a resolution passed by city council in February that asked Welch to pursue a \u201cplanning-first framework\u201d before picking a developer.<\/p>\n
Davidov said she would\u2019ve liked to see the city go through that planning process, after which council could\u2019ve adopted requirements for details like zoning, building, and renewable energy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re really concerned with environmental standards,\u201d she said. \u201cRight now, the city has very stringent ordinances for how you build a building, whether it\u2019s a green building, whether it conserves water – really important.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it only applies to city buildings. It doesn\u2019t apply to private buildings.\u201d<\/p>\n
That press conference is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. Thursday. Watch LIVE coverage on Bay News 9.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 After years of planning and a few false starts, St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[274,558,2287,115,596,2718,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,278,835],"class_list":["post-327190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-app-top-stories","tag-business","tag-local-politics","tag-news","tag-pinellas-county","tag-sarah-blazonis","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327190","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=327190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}