The Burg Bid Won: Here's What Happens Next at the Gas Plant
Blake Investment Partners is St. Pete's pick for the $8.1B Gas Plant District. Here's the real timeline, what's getting built first, and what it means nearby.
The zoning + planning picture
Zoning and land-use are the quiet drivers of why a block looks the way it does — and what can change. Here's the area in context.
I drove past Campbell Park on July 2nd — or at least I wish I had, because that's where Mayor Ken Welch stood up and officially named a winner for the biggest redevelopment bet St. Pete has made in decades.
Welch held a press conference in Campbell Park, blocks away from the stadium, to announce he has selected a redevelopment plan called The Burg Bid, submitted by St. Petersburg native Thompson Whitney Blake and his firm Blake Investment Partners.
After years of false starts, broken deals, and a hurricane-ripped roof, the city finally has a name on the door.
Now the real question isn't who won — it's what actually happens next, and when.
What "The Burg Bid" actually is
The proposal envisions an approximately $8.1 billion mixed-use district with residential, office, retail, hotel, cultural, and public open space components, representing one of the largest urban redevelopment opportunities in the Southeastern United States.
That's not a typo. Eight-point-one billion dollars on 86 acres in downtown St. Pete.
Development plans center on a 13-acre park and a "museum row" that would include a public art museum and a permanent home for the Woodson African American Museum, which Blake said will be the first building constructed during the project. Plans also include a workforce training center, multimodal transportation hub, small business success center, indoor/outdoor event venue, and even an outdoor water facility for sports like surfing.
On the housing side,
Blake Investment Partners has committed to delivering more than 3,600 income-restricted residential units through a combination of rental and for-sale housing, with approximately half of those units located within the Historic Gas Plant District, while the remaining residences would be developed elsewhere throughout St. Pete.
The city also tapped the Pinellas County Housing Authority on a parallel track:
the PCHA proposal includes a seven-story building with 80 affordable apartments for seniors, serving lower-income residents with an emphasis on very low-income seniors and preference for people who formerly lived in the Historic Gas Plant neighborhood before residents were displaced during urban renewal.
The team behind it
Blake isn't a newcomer.
The firm has been a steadfast partner in St. Petersburg's growth for 23 years, with more than 200 completed projects across the Southeast and a portfolio that demonstrates both scale and sophistication in mixed-use development, community planning, and long-term value creation.
Led by St. Petersburg native Thompson Whitney Blake, the development team includes Miami-based Related Group as co-developer and Elliott Investment Management as capital partner.
Related Group is one of the largest apartment developers in the country. Greystar — the nation's top apartment manager — is also on the team. This isn't a local boutique shop swinging above its weight; it's a hometown founder backed by some serious institutional muscle.
Blake's plan offered the most money for the land — $275 million — and pledged more income-restricted housing units than others, Welch said.
What the timeline actually looks like
Here's where I want to pump the brakes on the hype — because the timeline is long, and it needs to be said plainly.
The project will now move into negotiations between the city and the selected development team. Binding redevelopment agreements are expected to be prepared over the coming year before advancing to the St. Petersburg City Council for consideration. Final approval will be required before construction can begin on what is expected to become one of Florida's largest and most ambitious mixed-use redevelopment projects.
The Rays will continue to play at Tropicana Field through the 2028 season
, which means the stadium isn't going anywhere for at least two more years. After that,
Tropicana Field would be demolished to make way for the new developments, Welch said.
And once that needle-and-thread phase of negotiation and approvals wraps up,
the full buildout is expected to occur over roughly two decades as individual phases are designed, financed, and constructed.
Two decades is a long time. But the Woodson African American Museum — the centerpiece of Museum Row — is slated to be the first building delivered, which means cultural impact hits early, before a single luxury unit gets its rooftop pool.
Per the City of St. Petersburg's own timeline,
the CBAC will host two meetings in July — one for public comment on the project and a second discussion for CBAC members only. Using that feedback, Mayor Welch and city staff will begin to negotiate a term sheet and contract for approval by City Council. Next steps following the July 2026 CBAC meetings will be announced later in 2026.
Translation: if you want to weigh in, those July CBAC meetings are your moment.
What this means for nearby neighborhoods
I'll be honest — sellers near the Gas Plant site have already been mentally pricing in "future potential" for years. What changes now is that the potential has a name, a dollar figure, and a developer with skin in the game.
Developers project the overall redevelopment would generate $8.1 billion in development spending, more than $30 billion in economic impact over 30 years, and more than $2.7 billion in tax revenue over that same period.
A project of that scale reshapes the tax base for the entire city — which has downstream effects on school funding, infrastructure investment, and quality-of-life amenities that buyers in every St. Pete ZIP code end up caring about.
The proposal also includes the Legacy Link walking trail, intended to strengthen pedestrian connections between The Deuces and downtown St. Petersburg
— which is a big deal for anyone who's ever felt that Central Avenue's energy runs out a few blocks too soon heading south.
If you're curious what homes near downtown St. Pete are actually worth right now — before this plays out over the next five to ten years — I track values actively in the 33701 and 33705 ZIP codes. The pipeline of projects like this is exactly why buyers paying attention to downtown St. Pete neighborhoods right now are making a bet that's hard to argue against.
This is the biggest civic decision St. Pete has made since the Pier. Watch those July CBAC meetings.