The City of St. Pete is moving forward with more than $19 million in major infrastructure upgrades that will strengthen the city’s resilience to hurricanes and improve the reliability of core public works systems.

City Council approved the investment during its November 6th meeting, advancing two projects that target stormwater improvements and long-needed updates at the Southwest Water Reclamation Facility at 3800 54th Avenue South next to Eckerd College.

“These projects support improvements to some of our most critical public works systems and facilities that impact residents’ day-to-day lives,” said Mayor Ken Welch in a prepared statement.

The largest portion of the investment is an $18.3 million Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP) proposal for Ajax Building Company.

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.