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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Just in time for Halloween, a 1939 bungalow in the Central Oak Park neighborhood will become a new home for St. Petersburg’s paranormal activity.
Dr. Brandy Stark, founder of Spirits of St. Petersburg, will soft open the Museum of Haunted History at 4754 1st Avenue North on Friday and Saturday, October 23 and 24, from 6 to 9 p.m.
The museum will display haunted and historic objects, including a wedding dress associated with a spirit named Irene, antiques, dolls, and artifacts from the group’s past investigations.
It will also include a spiritual apothecary and space for psychic readings, workshops, meetings, and future overnight investigations.
Stark has been investigating paranormal activity since 1997. She has led local ghost tours, investigated hundreds of cases, and written Supernatural St. Petersburg and Paranormal Pinellas Vol. 1 & 2.
“I’ve always wanted to present the supernatural in a manner that, number one, is safe, number two, is educational, and number three, is a little bit of fun,” Stark said in a conversation with St. Pete Rising.