St. Pete City Council approves 86-unit affordable housing project in Disston Heights
/After hours of public comment from local residents, many of whom were opposed to the project, St. Petersburg’s City Council approved a site plan review application for an 86-unit affordable housing development on 22nd Avenue North.
City Council was tasked with looking at the merits of the project, which satisfied all the city’s requirements.
City staff recommended approving the development and City Council’s vote was unanimous.
Read More

A Japanese mini truck is being transformed into a mobile café that will soon serve specialty coffee around St. Pete.
Evangeline’s Cafe is expected to debut later this summer, serving espresso drinks, matcha, chai, and more from the bed of a converted kei truck.
Owner Evangeline Fox plans to take the mobile café to local markets, concerts, art shows, and other events throughout St. Pete.
Fox, 25, moved from Maryland in 2019 to attend Eckerd College. While studying there, she became immersed in the local hospitality scene and developed an appreciation for the city’s independent coffee shops.
That sense of community is what eventually pushed her to start a café of her own.
“My friends and I would go to local coffee shops all the time, and I just saw how naturally a community could form around something as simple as a cup of coffee,” Fox said in a conversation with St. Pete Rising. “For me, it’s all about how coffee can connect people.”