Task force formed to help revive 22nd St. S

ST. PETERSBURG -- Already the target of several neighborhood renewal projects, 22nd Street S is about to get another shot of city government attention.

A task force comprising officials from city departments will meet regularly with the 22nd Street business district, whose leaders want to revive what was the African-American community's original main street.

"It's a problem-solving team," said Susan Ajoc, the city's Neighborhood Partnership director.

Solving ongoing neighborhood issues is the goal. The police, codes, leisure services and engineering departments will be involved, said Regenia Wade, the neighborhood planner who is helping organize the group.

The city's business development center also will be represented, as will the public housing project Hope VI, the Boys and Girls Club on 22nd Street and adjacent neighborhood organizations such as Melrose-Mercy, Wildwood and Palmetto Park, Wade said.

Wade has been a city team leader for Melrose-Mercy and Wildwood. "She's heard a lot of the issues that have come up along 22nd Street," Ajoc said.

The city team concept was developed during David Fischer's tenure as mayor in the 1990s, concurrently with Fischer's emphasis on neighborhood empowerment.

About 30 such teams are operating, Ajoc said.

They form to give more intense attention to neighborhoods whose leaders ask for it. Sometimes they attack specific nuisances, as was the case along a strip of 34th Street N several years ago when businesses and residents united with city officials to fight prostitution and drugs.

Twenty-second Street is focusing on several issues, but economic redevelopment is at the core.

The city is in the midst of developing along a section of the street a pilot project for the planned Dome Industrial Park, touted by city leaders as one of the efforts that will rejuvenate the Midtown area.

Meanwhile, the state-sponsored Main Street program focuses on the street's revival between Interstate 275 and 15th Avenue S.

City planner Gary Jones has been tapped to work that effort along with its new manager, Lillie Collins Philogene. Jones said his specific role is still being defined. "We're in the initial stages," said Jones, who also is working with the Grand Central Main Street program a few blocks away.

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