St. Pete's Gas Plant District: Mayor Welch Is About to Pick a Winner
Nine proposals are in for St. Pete's 86-acre Gas Plant District, and Mayor Welch is expected to name a finalist this month. Here's what's on the table.
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've been watching the Historic Gas Plant District story for a while now, and this week it finally moved to the edge of a decision. If you live in, work in, or are considering buying anywhere near downtown St. Pete, this is the most consequential piece of local news you can follow right now.
Nine teams threw their hats in — most skipped the ballpark
The City of St. Petersburg received nine redevelopment proposals by the deadline for the Historic Gas Plant District, setting the stage for a competitive review process that will shape the future of the land surrounding Tropicana Field. The submissions range from multibillion-dollar master-planned districts backed by national developers to smaller housing-focused concepts emphasizing affordability and community ownership.
Notably, most proposals pitch plans that do not include a Tampa Bay Rays ballpark.
That's a significant shift from every prior chapter of this story. The Rays saga — and Hurricane Milton's role in collapsing the Hines deal — effectively cleared the board and opened the door to a genuinely different kind of vision for the site.
The nine groups in the running, per the City, are: Ark Ellison Horus, Blake Investment Partners, Foundation Vision Partners, Freedom Communities Company, Logical Sites Inc., Pinellas County Housing Authority, Reparations Land Trust and Development Authority, Tempo Novus, The Burg Bid LLC, and The Tampa Bay Boom Inc.
What the leading proposals actually look like
The proposal drawing the most attention from urban watchers is from Blake Investment Partners, led by St. Pete native Thompson Whitney Blake and co-developed with Miami-based Related Group.
The Burg Bid LLC — part of that team — submitted the largest financial offer, proposing to purchase 58 acres for $275 million in cash. Blake Investment Partners led the development team with Related Group as a co-general partner and Elliott Investment Management as an investor. The proposal outlines an estimated $8 billion mixed-use redevelopment and states it would not rely on new public subsidies beyond CRA funds. The plan includes thousands of residential units, including more than 3,600 units of income-restricted housing, as well as office, hotel, retail, and entertainment space.
Also turning heads: Ark Ellison Horus, the group that actually kicked off this entire process.
The four-fold development team, comprised of ARK Investment Management, Ellison Development, Horus Construction Services, and Baker Barrios, submitted an unsolicited proposal to redevelop the district in fall 2025, which sparked the latest bidding process.
Their pitch leans into a high-tech innovation hub model and includes a community investment mechanism tied to the project.
Then there's Foundation Vision Partners — a team that includes former Hines staffers from the failed Rays deal.
Staff who worked on the Rays-Hines proposal, including former Hines development partner Alex Schapira and consultant Anddrikk Frazier, are taking another shot at developing the district under Foundation Vision Partners. This time, architectural firm Gensler would focus on "horizontal prep work," like improving public infrastructure, to deliver development-ready land for the city to sell to developers, bit by bit.
The community lens: promises made, promises owed
This isn't just a real estate story — it's a reparative one.
The Gas Plant District is a historically Black neighborhood leveled to make way for the construction of Tropicana Field and Interstate 175. At the time, residents of the district were promised economic opportunities would come from the projects, but locals agree those opportunities never fully materialized.
Whatever goes up on the 86 acres of prime downtown real estate will shape St. Pete's future and determine whether the city can do right by Black residents forced out of their neighborhood by Tropicana Field. It will also speak to the legacy of Mayor Ken Welch, who has made the Historic Gas Plant District redevelopment a pillar of his mayoral agenda.
That weight is reflected in the review process.
Mayor Welch will select a proposal following a comprehensive review and multiple public input sessions. Following the selection, the proposal will be formally vetted by the Community Benefits Advisory Council and City Council in alignment with previously established procedures.
Where things stand right now
The public comment window has closed,
City Administrators and Directors are now completing their strengths and weaknesses analysis of the shortlisted proposals.
The mayor had planned to pick a final proposal in June after the 30-day public feedback window closed — and St. Petersburg held a Town Hall to allow the final four developers to present their proposals to redevelop the Historic Gas Plant District.
Hundreds of people attended that event.
This is genuinely one of those once-in-a-generation civic moments. The 86-acre footprint sits right in the middle of downtown, surrounded by the neighborhoods and ZIP codes that have defined St. Pete's recent growth story.
Why it matters for buyers and sellers in St. Pete
For anyone watching property values in downtown St. Pete — or in nearby ZIP codes like 33705 (Historic Kenwood) or 33701 (downtown) — this decision is going to move things. A master-planned district anchored by a 13-acre park, thousands of new residential units, a museum row, and Class A office space would represent an enormous demand driver for the entire core city. If you've been on the fence about buying near downtown, the direction this decision goes is worth watching closely before you pull the trigger.
I'll keep tracking this one as it unfolds. Mayor Welch's announcement could come any week now.