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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A 31-acre office property along McCann Lake has received preliminary approval for what would become the largest apartment community in Pinellas Park, with 552 units, including at least 221 affordable apartments.
City staff approved the preliminary site plan on September 30th for 10222 MCI Drive in the Gateway Centre Business Park.
The two-phase development would replace an office campus with nine four-story apartment buildings, two clubhouses, pickleball courts, and 847 parking spaces.
The apartment proposal relies on Florida’s Live Local Act, which allows residential development on the industrially zoned property, provided that at least 40% of the apartments, or at least 221 units, are reserved for households earning at or below 120% of the area median income for a minimum of 30 years.
The remaining 331 apartments would be leased at market rates.
Plans call for apartments ranging from studios to three-bedroom units. All nine residential buildings would rise four stories, with a maximum height of 50 feet.