St. Pete prepares to sell former Science Center with support from City Council and community
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The once-cherished Science Center in west St. Pete, attracting more than 20,000 students each year from 1959 through 2014, is on the verge of a major comeback.
At the end of September, St. Petersburg City Council voted unanimously to move forward with selling the Science Center property at 7701 22nd Avenue North to St. Pete for STEAM, a local team led by The St. Petersburg Group (SPG).
The group made an unsolicited offer to buy the property in 2023 and now plans to acquire the four-acre site for $1.6 million, transforming it into a modern hub for science, technology, and entrepreneurship.
Mayor Ken Welch, who had recently reconsidered the sale in favor of using the site for an expansion of the city’s wastewater facilities, now supports the sale again and has directed his staff to identify alternative locations for expanding the Northwest Water Reclamation Plant.
“I appreciate that the Council expressed willingness to support higher-cost options, including the potential relocation of the brush site, in order to advance the Science Center redevelopment,” Welch wrote in a letter to City Council.
“I believed that the project could have gone forward on another non-city parcel, while still utilizing the federal and state support promised over the years,” Welch continued.
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The City of St. Petersburg has closed a $6.4 million land sale for The Central, a planned $200 million mixed-use development in the EDGE District, completing a property transfer that had held up construction for months.
The deal was signed on Election Day, November 3rd, the same day Charlie Crist defeated Mayor Ken Welch, transferring portions of the former police headquarters property at 1300 1st Avenue North to entities affiliated with Ellison Development.
The closing clears the way for continued work on the 2.1-acre development, which will include Class A offices, a Marriott Autograph Collection hotel, retail space, 42 workforce apartments, and public gathering spaces.
“This is a big day for The Central and for the EDGE District,” Casey Ellison, president and CEO of Ellison Development, said in a press release. “The excitement surrounding this project has continued to grow, and this milestone brings us one step closer to delivering a destination that will create new opportunities and fresh energy to the neighborhood.”
For nearby businesses and residents, the most visible progress so far has been the 531-space public parking garage, which opened in June 2025 across from Ferg’s Sports Bar.
The sale excludes 400 parking spaces spread across five floors of the garage, matching the number of public spaces promised when the redevelopment proposal was selected in 2019.