ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014\u00a0St. Petersburg City Council members talked publicly for the first time about Mayor Kenneth Welch\u2019s redevelopment strategy for the Historic Gas Plant District at their Thursday meeting, and a majority were critical.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
At their meeting on Thursday, five out of eight St. Petersburg City Council members were critical of the mayor’s Gas Plant strategy
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Those five members said they want to see an RFP and master plan developed first\u00a0
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Two city council members backed Mayor Kenneth Welch’s strategy\u00a0
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On Wednesday, Welch extended the proposal window to begin in January, instead of mid-November<\/p>\n
\u201cCommunity conversations and priorities do not equal planning,\u201d said council member Lisset Hanewicz. \u201cI think we need a longer period, and it is once in a generation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under pressure from the community, Welch sent a memo to the City Council on Wednesday, stating he was extending the city\u2019s deadline for the proposal window to open in January, instead of mid-November.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat will constitute 105 days since our Oct. 21\u00a0announcement,\u201d he said. \u201cI do not believe reissuing an RFP is necessary or beneficial. Our priorities, expressed in 23 Guiding Principles of the 2022 RFP have not changed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Welch said those priorities include jobs, housing, equitable economic development resilience, green space and meaningful recognition of the HGPD community.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur goal remains a redevelopment process that is actionable, inclusive, and true to the commitments made to the Historic Gas Plant District,\u201d he said. \u201cI look forward to continuing this work with Council to ensure the outcome reflects our shared values.\u201d<\/p>\n
Council member Corey Givens said he wants to see a master plan developed from an Urban Land Institute study first, and believes the extension is still not enough time to get everything done.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it is unwise for us to rush this. We need more time,\u201d he said. \u201cI still don\u2019t think 100-plus days is ample. I would like to see more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Council member Brandi Gabbard also said there should be a longer timeline before more proposals start flowing in.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t understand this rush for a quick win right now,\u201d she said. \u201cI recognize there are particular pieces of this property that we want to move forward, but I don\u2019t necessarily believe that we need a master plan developer to even do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Council member Gina Driscoll said she would like to see a new request for proposals opened up for the 86-acre site.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel much more comfortable with an RFP process,\u201d she said. \u201cJust to be really blunt, I think if we\u2019re going to be serious about this, start counting votes now. If I\u2019m not comfortable with the process, I\u2019m probably not going to be comfortable with the proposal that\u2019s brought forward for us to vote on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Council member Richie Floyd, who put the RFP issue on the agenda\u00a0and sparked the conversation amongst council members, said he wants to see a plan before opening the proposal window.<\/p>\n
\u201cI assume you heard us express concern with how we\u2019re going about it,\u201d he said. \u201cDoesn\u2019t mean I\u2019m not going to evaluate whatever gets in front of me, but I might. It\u2019s just harder to come to terms with something when you don\u2019t like how you got to something.\u201d<\/p>\n
The only two council members who publicly backed Welch\u2019s approach were Deborah Figgs-Sanders and Mike Harting.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just really want to see the Gas Plant descendants not be pushed in the back,\u201d she said. \u201cTo me, we\u2019re still losing the focus on why it\u2019s called the Gas Plant project.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harting said he agrees that there\u2019s no need for a new RFP, and he was glad the mayor extended the proposal window.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m OK with the process the administration has set forward,\u201d he said. \u201cI do appreciate the mayor looking at a longer time frame.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chair Copley Gerdes was the only council member who did not weigh in on the topic.<\/p>\n
The proposal window was triggered by two unsolicited bids the city has already received. The five council members critical of Welch\u2019s approach also said an appraisal should have been done before the proposal window opens.<\/p>\n
City Development Administrator James Corbett said the city would not negotiate a sale for the land without the appraisal first.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy the time we get the appraisal, it would likely be in January or in February,\u201d he said. \u201cI also want to make sure that we time the appraisal where it\u2019s not too dated.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014\u00a0St. Petersburg City Council members talked publicly for the first time about Mayor Kenneth Welch\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47209,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[3140,274,2968,115,596,99,29208,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,278,835],"class_list":["post-47208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-app-top-stories","tag-josh-rojas","tag-news","tag-pinellas-county","tag-politics","tag-rays-stadium","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\/47208","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=47208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}