The City Council agrees unanimously to economic terms that will help build a grocery and other stores.
By CARRIE JOHNSON
Published December 19, 2003
ST. PETERSBURG - For more than a decade, Midtown residents have told city leaders they need a neighborhood grocery store.
City Council members responded Thursday, approving a historic agreement that will put a $5.4-million shopping center anchored by a Kash n' Karry in the core of the economically struggling area.
Council members unanimously agreed to lease land at 22nd Street and 18th Avenue S to a nonprofit agency for $5 per year and loan it $1.35-million for construction.
"This is huge," Mayor Rick Baker said after the vote. "It's very, very big."
The developer, Urban Development Solutions, is a nonprofit agency launched by Darryl Rouson, the president of the St. Petersburg chapter of the NAACP, and local businessman Larry J. Newsome.
The company hopes to break ground next spring and open the shopping center by June 2005. Plans for the 38,000-square-foot store include a police substation within the building. The shopping center will have 9,000 square feet of additional retail space.
Midtown is an area of the city that lies mostly south of Central Avenue. Baker has made revitalization of this largely African-American community a top priority since taking office in 2001.
"I think this is one of the most significant things we have done in the Midtown economic development effort," Baker said. "This certainly is a great day for the city of St. Petersburg."
Baker and Deputy Mayor Goliath Davis initiated a series of public meetings in 2002 to ask residents what services were most needed in their community. The grocery store was the most common reply.
The only chain grocery store within the neighborhood's boundaries now is a Winn-Dixie at the northern edge.
Baker and others reached out to grocery store owners to encourage them to locate in Midtown, but their efforts were unsuccessful. The city announced plans in March to assemble land for the store, buying most of it from a real estate company controlled by Rouson and Newsome.
About a dozen community residents attended the council meeting for a public hearing. While all were supportive of the Kash n' Karry, several were concerned about a liquor store planned for inside the grocery.
"We don't need any more liquor stores," said Chrisshun Cox, who lives in Midtown. "We've already got that on every corner."
Newsome said the liquor store is included in the company's floor plans and that Kash n' Karry wouldn't agree to a change.
Other residents said the good the grocery store would bring to the community outweighed any concerns and urged council members to approve the deal.
"The number of jobs and the money it will bring to this area - it's needed," said Ronald Wade. "The image of the city should not change when you cross Central Avenue."
Urban Development Services is receiving assistance from several major development companies, including the Sembler Co., which built BayWalk, and Echelon Real Estate Services.
In addition, the project received a $700,000 Health and Human Services grant.
Several City Council members said they were troubled by the amount of public money that will be spent on the project. The city's loan is interest-free. The amount won't be adjusted for inflation, and the developers don't have to make payments for 10 years.
But council Chairman Earnest Williams said the risk was necessary to jump-start economic development in the area. "It's going to be something that the people in this area can be proud of," Williams said. "The community stepped up, and now the city is stepping up."
Baker said he is pursuing other services for the Midtown shopping center, including a bank.
