22nd St. S waits for home base

© St. Petersburg Times,
published October 3, 2001

ST. PETERSBURG -- They worked for two years to win state help, but 22nd Street S boosters still don't have a permanent place in which to base their neighborhood revival effort.

The 22nd Street Redevelopment Corp. is counting on a $50,000 grant from Florida A&M to renovate a headquarters building while the historic black business district works on its bootstrap rehabilitation.

But the grant money, awarded in March, still hasn't been released.

And the targeted building at 1025 22nd St. S still stands boarded and vacant.

"No telling when the money will be provided," said Judy Fowler, the redevelopment corporation's secretary.

On March 13, Florida A&M's Institute on Urban Policy named the redevelopment group one of eight organizations statewide as grant recipients.

Plans originally called for the building renovations to be completed by Aug. 31.

Institute officials at Florida A&M couldn't be reached for comment early this week.

However, a Sunday memo to Fowler from a institute associate director Herbert Bailey said the institute was awaiting formal approval from Gov. Jeb Bush's office to extend the grant through Dec. 31. After that approval is received, release of the grant money can be processed, the memo said.

The approval is expected this week, according to the memo.

Repairing the building would accomplish several goals, the most important providing a center for 22nd Street's Main Street project. Last month the Florida secretary of state's office awarded 22nd a Florida Main Street designation, meaning the neighborhood will get three years of state help in devising economic and marketing strategies.

Jean Claude Petit, the 22nd's Main Street program manager, has been using temporary space in the Hope VI housing office.

The renovation also would bring life to an unused building on a depressed strip. And it would provide space for a neighborhood news bureau for the University of South Florida's mass communications program.

The bureau will be home to students whose mission is envisioned as gathering and writing news about the Midtown area while publishing a newsletter for the 22nd Street group.

"We're ready to set up shop," said Mike Killenberg, the journalism studies professor who oversees the bureau. It is currently operating out of the campus newspaper office at USF-St. Petersburg.

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