Welch\u2019s small-but-mighty team of defenders has repeatedly stomped their feet in protest over critics saying the current Mayor lost the Tampa Bay Rays and botched the 2024 hurricane response. It\u2019s unfair criticism, they protest. The Mayor can\u2019t control the weather.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re right on just one thing: He can\u2019t control the weather. But he can, and does, control decision-making on city projects. And on that, Welch has a robust r\u00e9sum\u00e9 of failures ranging from rejecting the Moffitt development because there wasn\u2019t enough affordable housing only to see market-rate housing go up instead, to bungling plans for the city\u2019s municipal services center.<\/p>\n
Now, there\u2019s the Deuces Rising housing project. Tampa Bay Times Viewpoints Editor Graham Brink penned a damning column Thursday criticizing the project as a financial boondoggle.<\/p>\n
Brink wrote that it didn\u2019t make financial sense on first glance. Worse, he said it didn\u2019t make sense on second or third glance either, because \u201cmaking the numbers work took the kind of math that would make a hedge fund manager flinch.\u201d<\/p>\n The project includes 24 \u201caffordable\u201d townhomes, half earmarked for working families earning at or below 80% of area median income, or AMI, ($92,000) and the other half for those earning up to 120% AMI ($138,000). Nearing completion, the project is getting close to move-in-ready, but the math behind its completion is anything but straightforward.<\/p>\n The city under Welch\u2019s watch approved a subsidy of $500,000 for EACH townhome, for a total of $12 million. The cost to build each unit is estimated at $800,000, meaning the city is subsidizing more than half the cost. But that\u2019s not even where this gets super janky.<\/p>\n A nearby townhome project by Habitat for Humanity clocks in at $400,000 per unit. It\u2019s not exactly apples to apples, as Brink pointed out. But the bottom line is, the per-square-foot price to build the Habitat homes is half as much as the Deuces Rising project.<\/p>\n The $500,000 per-unit subsidy is also more than the median home sale price in St. Pete, which is $450,000.<\/p>\n What\u2019s worse, Brink used Realtor.com and Zillow data to look at real estate nearby, finding a total of 48 homes that, combined, would cost the same as the city\u2019s total Deuces Rising subsidy. That means the city could have outright purchased twice as many homes, given them to residents in need and still owned the Deuces Rising land.<\/p>\n And before anyone assumes that some or even all of those 48 properties are not livable, Brink addresses that. They are.<\/p>\n There\u2019s another thing; we\u2019re not really sure for whom these homes are affordable.<\/p>\n Originally, the townhomes were expected to cost between $223,000 and $317,000, but City Council Member Corey Givens Jr. recently posted on Facebook<\/a> that the homes would cost as much as $400,000, prompting residents to comment en masse wondering who considered that affordable.<\/p>\n Considering the 50\/50 split between availability at 80% and 120% AMI, let\u2019s look at those numbers. At 120% AMI, household income would be at $11,500 per month. Applying the widely recommended limit on how much people should spend on rent or a mortgage at 30%, those people could pay up to $3,450 per month and still land within that recommendation. That number is tough, but doable depending on whether a person has a down payment.<\/p>\n But at 80% AMI, monthly household income would be less than $8,000 per month, and the maximum housing cost under the recommended 30% threshold would be about $2,300 per month. Unless someone had a huge down payment to offer \u2014 unlikely at that income level \u2014 there\u2019s no way their housing costs would meet general household budgeting guidelines, even at the bottom threshold of Givens\u2019 estimate.<\/p>\n I asked a friend who bought a home at 4% interest on a 30-year fixed loan \u2014 average rates are now close to 7% \u2014 for $300,000 about their housing expenses. Their mortgage payment, including taxes and insurance, is about $2,600 per month.<\/p>\n So how, pray tell, can someone comfortably live in a home that costs more than $300,000, especially when borrowing rates are so high? This is not affordable housing; it\u2019s a subsidy for the sake of a ribbon cutting that does little to move the actual needle on the affordability crisis.<\/p>\n What\u2019s potentially the most egregious here is simple: Affordable housing is supposed to be Welch\u2019s top priority, yet he led a plan that provides questionable affordability with a staggering city subsidy.<\/p>\n And today\u2019s bad news doesn\u2019t stop there. The Tampa Bay Business Journal also reported that the Welch administration did not consider a pitch from the Tampa Bay Lightning parent company, Vinik Sports Group, to manage the city of St. Petersburg\u2019s Mahaffey Theater. The city has been managing the property<\/a> itself since the contract with its previous operator, Big 3 Entertainment, expired in May.<\/p>\n The city previously rejected a bid<\/a> to manage the theater from St. Petersburg Arts Partners. The city cited a lack of formal agreements with major partners, including, wait for it, Vinik Sports Group.<\/p>\n So let\u2019s get this straight. The city rejected a bid to manage the property because its primary vendor, Vinik Sports Group, hadn\u2019t entered into an official agreement. Then, Vinik Sports Group pitches its own management deal \u2014 which, it\u2019s worth noting, is far more lucrative than the city\u2019s current arrangement \u2014 and the city (Welch) can\u2019t be bothered to even consider it.<\/p>\n That\u2019s even worse when you consider who was behind the first pitch from St. Petersburg Arts Partners. That would be none other than Joe Hamilton, publisher of the St. Pete Catalyst and co-founder of the group currently revitalizing the city\u2019s long-shuttered Science Center. Welch had originally rejected<\/a> the group\u2019s plan and only accepted it after public pressure and a public rebuke from the City Council<\/a>.<\/p>\n What\u2019s more, guess who was also involved in the Science Center project, including raising funds for it. That\u2019s right, Charlie Crist. At the time Welch was trying to reject the publicly popular plan, Crist was already rumored to be seriously considering a bid for Mayor.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1788520579_675_Becker-Print-Ads-EMPOWER_728-x-90.jpg\")
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