If you've driven past the sea of parking lots around Tropicana Field this summer, you've probably noticed something different: actual optimism. In July, Mayor Ken Welch announced that Blake Investment Partners, working with Miami-based Related Group and capital partner Elliott Investment Management, had been chosen to lead an $8.1 billion redevelopment of the 86-acre Historic Gas Plant District. After three failed attempts in six years and a collapsed deal with the Tampa Bay Rays, St. Petersburg finally had an answer for what comes after the Trop.
Here's what almost nobody talking about that announcement mentioned in the same breath: the mayor who made the selection finished second in his own primary six weeks later, trailing former Governor Charlie Crist by 15 points. The runoff is November 3. Whether the plan you've been reading about actually happens may depend less on zoning meetings than on what happens at the ballot box in about eight weeks.
What Blake Investment Partners Actually Promised
The proposal, known as The Burg Bid, calls for purchasing 58 acres of city-owned land for $275 million. The team values the full site at $405 million, nearly four times what earlier bids had priced it at. Led by St. Petersburg native Thompson Whitney Blake, the plan centers on a 13-acre civic park anchored by a "museum row" that would give the Woodson African American Museum of Florida its first permanent home.
The details go further than a park and a museum. The Burg Bid calls for restoring Booker Creek, the waterway that ran through the original Gas Plant neighborhood before it was reduced to what the proposal itself describes as a drainage ditch between parking lots and the stadium. A pedestrian trail called the Legacy Link would connect the historically Black Deuces business district to downtown. A workforce and small-business hub the team calls the Collaboratorium would work with partners like CareerSource Tampa Bay. Housing is the biggest number in the plan: more than 3,600 income-restricted units built over 15 years, split evenly between the district itself and sites elsewhere in the city.
None of this happens overnight. The plan is structured in three phases of roughly five years each, with the team saying early construction outside the stadium's footprint could begin before Tropicana Field is demolished. That matters, because the Rays are under contract to play there through the 2028 season.
Selected Doesn't Mean Settled
Here's the part that got lost in the announcement coverage: Welch's pick is a preference, not a signed deal. The city still has to negotiate a development agreement with Blake Investment Partners, and that agreement has to go back to the City Council for approval. Council Member Brandi Gabbard, who ran against Welch in the same primary, publicly urged the city to slow down before finalizing anything, and the timing of the announcement, just weeks before the August 18 election, only added to the scrutiny.
To understand why this pick beat out the alternatives, it helps to see what the city was actually choosing between. Three teams made the final round:
| Proposal | Lead Team | What They Offered | Signature Feature |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Burg Bid | Blake Investment Partners, Related Group, Elliott Investment Management | $275M for 58 acres | 13-acre park, Woodson Museum, Booker Creek restoration |
| ARK Ellison Horus | ARK Investment Management, Ellison Development, Horus Construction | $202M total, including $50M in community benefits and $12M for Trop demolition | Unity Arch land bridge over I-175, 1,500+ hotel rooms |
| Foundation Vision Partners | Backstreets Capital, former Hines partner Alex Schapira | No land purchase; city retains ownership | City-led infrastructure buildout, parcels sold over time |
A fourth track ran in parallel: the Pinellas County Housing Authority was selected to build an 80-unit affordable senior housing complex on a much smaller, half-acre-plus parcel at 1659 Third Avenue South, a project city officials describe as able to move independently of whatever happens with the larger site.
The contrast between the three finalists is worth sitting with. Foundation Vision Partners' pitch was essentially: don't sell the land at all, let the city control the pace. The Burg Bid and ARK Ellison Horus both wanted a defined master plan and a purchase. Welch went with the team offering the biggest number and the most fully realized vision, but reviewers flagged real tradeoffs either way. The city's own evaluators noted that a phased, city-led approach like Foundation Vision Partners' would leave St. Petersburg holding an estimated $239 million in infrastructure costs without a master plan already locked in.
The Mayor Who Chose It Is Down By 15 Points
This is where the story stops being about zoning and starts being about arithmetic. In the August 18 primary, Crist took 36 percent of the vote to Welch's 21 percent, with City Council Member Brandi Gabbard at 17 percent and former Fire Chief Jim Large at 18 percent. Because no candidate cleared 50 percent, the race heads to a November 3 runoff between the top two finishers: Crist and Welch.
The money gap is just as lopsided. As of mid-August, Crist had more than $366,000 on hand between his campaign account and affiliated committee. Welch had less than $56,000. Welch has also lost some of the institutional support that carried him in 2021: the Tampa Bay Times, which backed him in his first race, split its endorsement this cycle between Gabbard and Crist, giving Welch neither nod.
None of this means the Burg Bid dies if Crist wins in November. But it does mean the person who negotiated the terms, picked the team, and set the priorities around affordable housing percentages and the museum's placement may not be the person signing the final development agreement. Crist has campaigned heavily on affordability, and any incoming administration inherits the option to renegotiate, slow-walk, or push back on specifics before the City Council votes.
What Changes On The Ground, And When
For residents, the practical timeline is less dramatic than the politics. The Rays are locked into Tropicana Field through the 2028 season, and city officials have said an extension may be necessary while the franchise and Hillsborough County continue talks about a separate, unrelated stadium project near Hillsborough Community College's Dale Mabry campus in Tampa. Whatever happens with the Gas Plant District redevelopment, the parking lots around the Trop aren't turning into a park and Museum Row next year. The earliest phase, if the Burg Bid moves forward as written, would start outside the stadium's current footprint, meaning construction could begin before any demolition of Tropicana Field itself.
That gives St. Petersburg a strange in-between period: a stadium that just got a new roof and reopened for the Rays' home opener against the Cubs in April, sitting on land that's already been sold, on paper, to a developer who wants to eventually tear it down. Downtown's rhythm around Beach Drive and the Trop will likely stay familiar for at least another year or two, even as the political fight over its future plays out on a much faster clock.
What To Actually Watch For
A few dates and decisions will tell you more than any rendering:
- November 3, 2026: The mayoral runoff between Welch and Crist. This is the single biggest variable in whether The Burg Bid proceeds as negotiated or gets reopened.
- City Council votes on a term sheet and final development agreement: These have to happen before anything is binding, and they're separate from the mayor's selection.
- Whether the Rays' stadium talks in Hillsborough County move forward independently: A resolution there would remove one more excuse for delay on the St. Petersburg side.
If you live in St. Petersburg, the honest answer to "what's happening with the Trop site" right now is that the city picked an answer, but the person who picked it is an underdog in his own reelection. Whoever is sworn in come January inherits the negotiating table, and that person doesn't have to be Ken Welch.
If you've been thinking about your own next move in St. Petersburg, whether that's a downtown condo near the district or a home in one of the neighborhoods further out, it helps to have someone who's actually tracking these civic decisions alongside the market itself. Kathie Lea Team works St. Petersburg and the surrounding Tampa Bay corridor every day, and we're happy to talk through what a project like this might mean for the area around it. Start Your Home Search whenever you're ready, or just reach out with questions about what's actually happening in the neighborhoods we cover, including the full St. Petersburg guide on our site.
