{"id":7690,"date":"2025-10-17T03:19:18","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T03:19:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/7690\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T03:19:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T03:19:18","slug":"brandi-gabbard-takes-step-to-study-historic-gas-plant-site-for-best-uses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/7690\/","title":{"rendered":"Brandi Gabbard takes step to study Historic Gas Plant site for best uses"},"content":{"rendered":"

The St. Petersburg City Council will discuss having an independent third party study the best uses for the Historic Gas Plant site as future development opportunities come into view.<\/p>\n

Council member Brandi Gabbard, who this week confirmed she would run for Mayor next year, brought forward a request to discuss having the Urban Land Institute\u2019s (ULI) Advisory Services Program study the site.<\/p>\n

Her request<\/a> comes after the city received an unsolicited proposal<\/a> from developer Casey Ellison and investor Cathie Wood to redevelop the site, the current home of Tropicana Field.<\/p>\n

Gabbard said she believes the study is necessary because proposals over the years for the site have come from developers whose interests are rooted in profits.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd what makes this different is that this is an unbiased professional experience from individuals who have done these sort of projects all across the country. They know what works for equitable economic development and a catalyst to really create sustainable development in very large tracts of land across the country,\u201d Gabbard said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Council was unanimous in moving the item forward for future discussion at a Housing, Land Use and Transportation Committee meeting. But Council member Deborah Figgs-Sanders hinted that she may not support moving forward with an actual study.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just took the descendants of the gas plant through an extensive, extensive, extensive period of what they want to see on that particular site,\u201d she said, before adding that she would support at least discussing it.<\/p>\n

As part of Mayor Ken Welch\u2019s selection process for a site developer, he held a series of public input sessions to establish priorities for the site. Ultimately, Welch selected the Tampa Bay Rays and Hines to develop the site with a new baseball stadium as part of a deal to keep the team in St. Pete.<\/p>\n

That deal fell through<\/a>, however, after Hurricane Milton blew the roof from Tropicana Field. Now, the development question is back on the table, likely without a new baseball stadium.<\/p>\n

The study, Gabbard said, would cost about $135,000 and she recommended seeking partners to help absorb some of that cost, though she noted that it wasn\u2019t an expensive study.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Figgs-Sanders disagreed, arguing such funds would go a long way in helping other organizations that often seek city grants.<\/p>\n

City Administrator Rob Gerdes said the Welch administration is not currently seeking an independent site use study, but is open to the conversation.<\/p>\n

Council member Lisset Hanewicz suggested a study could help the Council and the Welch administration better understand the city\u2019s own needs, such as a new fire station.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first thing that I want to see is, what do we need as a city to provide services from that site, whether it\u2019s the residents of the Gas Plant,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to have more people in our city. I think of Station (No.) 4 and how they\u2019re limited in size.\u201d<\/p>\n

The current proposal from Wood and Ellison includes housing, cultural and civic spaces, hotel space and parks, among other features.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The St. Petersburg City Council will discuss having an independent third party study the best uses for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[3300,8120,8121,7355,8122,2346,8123,8124,202,3351,204,203,199,1640,201,200,3815,8125,8126,8127],"class_list":["post-7690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-brandi-gabbard","tag-casey-ellison","tag-cathie-wood","tag-deborah-figgs-sanders","tag-historic-gas-plant","tag-ken-welch","tag-lisset-hanewicz","tag-rob-gerdes","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-city-council","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-city-council","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-tropicana-field","tag-uli","tag-urban-land-institute"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7690","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=7690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}