Who Should Decide the Future of the Gas Plant?

The question we should be asking

The Historic Gas Plant is probably the most valuable public asset St. Petersburg will ever own.  St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch is considering from among three developer proposals for its  redevelopment. 

The Burg bid and the ARK-Ellison-Horus bid each propose they develop the whole property.  The Foundations Vision Partners bid proposes the city lead but hire them to manage the whole process.  (Of course any proposal will have to ultimately be approved by the City Council.) 

If the Mayor moves forward with the current process (and the City Council ultimately votes yes), the future of the Historic Gas Plant will be determined by the Mayor and one chosen development team.

Why would a city ever want to do that?  Shouldn’t the city and the community as a whole decide how the property should be developed?  Not just a mayor and a developer? 

Mayor Welch should pause the current selection process, create a short-term public review process to evaluate the alternatives, include community input, and make sure the city gets this decision right.

It’s time to pause 

The Mayor should pause his process and first start a process to decide who is going to lead – two people or the city, with the help of the community. 

Before choosing a proposal, the city should first determine what redevelopment approach best serves St. Petersburg. 

• Should the city lead?
• Should a master developer lead?
• Should there be some form of public-private partnership?
• And if the conclusion is that the city should lead, how should the city organize itself to make that approach successful? 

Those questions should be answered first. 

Only then should the city decide who is best qualified to help carry out that vision. 

That is what this post is about. 

What the evidence suggest

Over the past several weeks, I’ve written about ten cities that got major redevelopment projects right (including St. Petersburg) and six cities that got them wrong. 

We looked at examples where cities established a public vision, created a plan, put the streets, parks, infrastructure, and governance structure in place, and then invited developers to help implement that vision. 

We also looked at examples where cities largely handed the process to developers and ended up with disappointing results. 

To Home Runs Matter the lesson seems clear. 

• The cities that lead the process achieve better long-term outcomes than the cities that simply react to proposals.
• St. Petersburg should lead the redevelopment of the Historic Gas Plant. 

But while all the facts seem to agree, this is still only an opinion. 

My suggestion:

• Let’s create a process to determine the best approach.
• Then determine the governance structure needed to implement that approach.
• Then determine who is best qualified to carry it out. 

The Logical Next Step 

The city should create a temporary Gas Plant Redevelopment Review Task Force. 

A focused group with two decisions to evaluate: 

• Should the city lead the effort, sell all to one developer, or should there be a public-private or other approach?
• If the city should lead, what is the best model for the city to follow?
  •  A redevelopment corporation?
  • An advisory council?
  • An implementation partner?
  • Some combination?

Only after answering these questions should the city determine how best to implement the approach it selects. 

The Three Proposals – And Why We Are Starting In The Middle 

And that brings us to the three proposals currently being considered by Mayor Welch. 

At first glance, they appear to offer very different paths forward.  But they all share one important thing in common. 

All three proposals assume they know how redevelopment should occur.

But doesn’t that mean we are evaluating answers before deciding the question?

Each proposal begins with the assumption that the developer already knows how redevelopment should occur. 

• One team wants to be the master developer. 
• Another team wants to be the master developer. 
• A third team wants the city to retain ownership but wants to manage the redevelopment process on the city’s behalf. 
  

But all three proposals share one important thing in common – each begins with the assumption that it already knows how rededeveopment should occur.  

• One says: Let us do it.
• Another says:Let us do it.
• A third says: Let the city own it, but let us manage it. 

All three proposals are answering the same question – here’s how St. Petersburg should do this.  

But shouldn’t the city and the community first decide what redevelopment approach is best? 

That question belongs to the citizens of St. Petersburg and their elected representatives.  Not to any proposal team.  Not to any mayor.

• The most important decision facing the city today is not which proposal should win. 
• The most important decision is how the city should determine the best way to redevelop one of the most valuable public assets it will ever own. 
• But where is the public process that evaluates those alternatives, considers other approaches that may not currently be on the table, and helps the city determine the best path forward? 

At the moment, it appears that decision will largely come down to the Mayor and his administration. 

That doesn’t make much sense.  This project is too important to rely primarily on the judgment of any one person or administration. 

Why this decision is different

If you were facing a serious medical condition, you probably wouldn’t want one doctor making the decision alone. 

• You would want specialists. 
• You would want second opinions.
• You would want people with different expertise looking at the problem from different angles.
• And then you would make the best decision possible based on the information available. 

None of us are experts in every aspect of a redevelopment project of this scale. I’m not.  Most citizens aren’t. Most City Council members aren’t.  And no one should expect any mayor to be an expert in redevelopment, governance, infrastructure, finance, housing, transportation, land disposition, public-private partnerships, and long-term implementation all at the same time. 

A family doctor is an expert in many things, but when a patient faces a complicated heart condition, cancer diagnosis, or neurological problem, that doctor brings in specialists. Not because the doctor has failed. Because the problem requires expertise from multiple disciplines. 

The Historic Gas Plant site is no different. 

That is exactly why the city needs a transparent process that brings together independent expertise, allows alternatives to be evaluated, and gives City Council, the Mayor, and the public the information they need to make an informed decision. 

The goal is not to find one person to trust. 

The goal is to create a process that helps the city arrive at the best answer. 

The Historic Gas Plant site deserves the same level of care. 

This is an 86-acre public asset that may shape St. Petersburg for the next 30 to 40 years. 

The city should not simply compare the proposals that happen to be in front of it today. 

It should evaluate those proposals, consider other approaches that may not currently be on the table, bring in independent expertise, and establish a transparent process for determining what is best for the city. 

I haven’t seen that happen yet. 

My Opinion 

I’ve made my opinion clear. 

• I believe a city-led approach deserves serious consideration. 

But that’s my opinion.  The developers have opinions. Vision Partners has an opinion. The Mayor has an opinion. Other citizens have opinions. 

The question is not whose opinion is right. 

The question is whether the city has gone through a deliberate process to determine what approach is best before selecting one. 

The Gas Plant is an 86-acre public asset that may shape St. Petersburg for the next 30 to 40 years. The city owes its citizens more than competing opinions. 

It owes them a process. 

A Better Next Step 

Create a temporary Gas Plant Redevelopment Review Task Force. 

Not another planning committee. Not another endless study. A focused group with one mission: 

• Evaluate the alternatives and recommend the best redevelopment approach for St. Petersburg. 

Give it 60 to 90 days. 

The task force should not be controlled by any one mayor, any one administration, or any one proposal team.  Its purpose would be to help the city evaluate the alternatives, not advocate for a particular outcome. 

Membership could include: 

• one appointee selected by the Mayor, 
• one appointee selected by City Council 
• a community representative 
• a finance expert 
• a redevelopment expert
• a governance expert
• and an infrastructure implementation expert. 

The goal would be to bring together people with different backgrounds and perspectives rather than people who already agree on the answer. 

• The process should be public. 
• The meetings should be public. 
• The expert presentations should be public. 
• The alternatives being evaluated should be public. 
• And the final recommendations should be presented publicly to both the Mayor and City Council so citizens can see the reasoning and evaluate it for themselves. 

Bring In People Who Have Done This Before 

The task force should hear from experts who understand different aspects of large-scale redevelopment. 

• Redevelopment governance experts who have run redevelopment corporations and public development authorities. 
• Organizations such as ULI and HR&A Advisors that understand redevelopment governance, implementation, public-private partnerships, and lessons learned from other cities. 
• Infrastructure and program-management experts who understand how major public projects are phased, managed, and delivered over decades. 
• Public finance experts who understand how cities fund infrastructure, capture value, and protect taxpayers. 

Click on any title below to read the full article

• 10 Cities That Got Major Redevelopment Right
• When Planning Comes Second
• What It Looks Like When A City Leads
• Understanding the Historic Gas Plant Development Debate