Developers of Tangerine Plaza, a city-owned strip mall in southern St. Petersburg where the area\u2019s only grocery store shuttered in 2017, are seeking more time and over $22 million in public money to bring a food market and affordable housing there.<\/p>\n
Mayor Ken Welch\u2019s administration is recommending that the City Council approve a one-year extension when it meets Dec. 11 for Sugar Hill Group, which submitted its unsolicited offer for the project in May 2022. It had worked with former Mayor Rick Kriseman\u2019s administration on a similar proposal there.<\/p>\n
The council narrowly approved a deal with Sugar Hill Group in June 2024 in a 5-3 vote. It gave the group 18 months to secure funding to build affordable housing and find a grocer. But according to documents in the council\u2019s upcoming agenda, the group hasn\u2019t fulfilled either request.<\/p>\n
City spokesperson Samantha Bequer pointed out that the agreement in place allows Sugar Hill Group to request a one-year extension, which can be approved or denied by the council.<\/p>\n
She said if the council rejects the extension and Sugar Hill doesn\u2019t meet its obligations by the Jan. 2 deadline, the deal will terminate.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe administration would move forward with evaluating the next best path for the site, to ensure alignment with community needs and the City\u2019s long-term goals for the corridor,\u201d Bequer wrote in an email.<\/p>\n
With new members on a recently emboldened council, it\u2019s not looking good for Sugar Hill Group. Should the deal collapse, it would add Tangerine Plaza to Welch\u2019s list of projects that have not worked out. They include the redevelopment of the municipal marina and a deal with the Tampa Bay Rays to build a stadium and surrounding development.<\/p>\n
Council member Corey Givens Jr.\u2019s district includes Tangerine Plaza, located at 1794 22nd St. S. When the issue came before the council in the summer of 2024, Givens spoke as a resident in favor of giving the project to Positive Impact Ministries, one of two groups that offered cash to purchase the strip mall.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s fair to drag this process out because someone can\u2019t get their ducks in order,\u201d Givens said Dec. 1.<\/p>\n
Sugar Hill Group is not the same outfit that competed to redevelop the Historic Gas Plant District and build a new baseball stadium. It includes the Rev. Louis Murphy of Mount Zion Progressive Missionary Baptist Church, Roy Binger of locally owned Binger Financial Services and Miami\u2019s New Urban Development. Reached by phone, Murphy said he would call a reporter back. Binger did not return a call and text message seeking comment.<\/p>\n
According to the meeting agenda, Sugar Hill Group in November gave the city letters of intent pledging funding for the project, but they were conditional on the city granting $11.16 million from the South St. Petersburg Community Redevelopment Area and Pinellas County giving another $11.16 million.<\/p>\n
City staff told Sugar Hill Group that much money is \u201cnot possible\u201d and would take at least two years to fulfill, according to the agenda. Pinellas County is \u201cgenerally supportive\u201d of the request, the agenda read.<\/p>\n
City staff noted in documents that the application Sugar Hill Group submitted for city funding to build 186 affordable housing units was incomplete. Five out of 11 required documents, the city wrote, are placeholders for actual submissions.<\/p>\n
Sugar Hill has proposed building 56 residences for those making at least 60% of the area median income and 130 units for those making at least 80% of the area median income.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Developers of Tangerine Plaza, a city-owned strip mall in southern St. Petersburg where the area\u2019s only grocery store…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1571,1644,596,202,204,203,199,201,200,41132,41131],"class_list":["post-71634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-affordable-housing","tag-housing","tag-pinellas-county","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-sugar-hill-group","tag-tangerine-plaza"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71634","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=71634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}