St. Pete prepares to sell former Science Center with support from City Council and community
/
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.
Read More
St. Petersburg’s oldest arts institution is preparing for the most ambitious expansion in its more than 100-year history.
New renderings have been revealed for the first phase of Arts Center Association, Inc.’s $34 million expansion of the Morean Arts Center at 719 Central Avenue in downtown St. Pete.
The redevelopment calls for a new five-story arts center on an existing surface parking lot at the corner of 8th Street and Central Avenue, bringing the Arts Center and the Chihuly Collection, currently located across the street at 720 Central Avenue, under one roof.
Designed by Wannemacher Jensen Architects, the new building would feature a largely white exterior wrapped in slender vertical fins.
At street level, a sweeping, wave-like opening would rise from the ground floor and fold into the façade, creating a sculptural entrance inspired by the fluid forms and luminous colors of Dale Chihuly’s glasswork.