Stop the 30-Day Process. Don’t Replace It With 90 Days. Plan First.
Update – November 2025: Council Member Richie Floyd is planning to present a resolution at the City Council meeting this Thursday, November 13, to replace the Mayor’s 30-day Gas Plant developer solicitation with a 90-day RFP process.
This doesn’t fix the problem — it simply extends a process that’s both unlawful and unwise.
The right next step is not another rushed window for developer proposals — it’s to adopt a proper redevelopment plan first, as Florida law and every smart city redevelopment model both require.
If you agree, please take a moment today to send a message and call St. Petersburg Council Member Floyd’s office.
Your voice matters right now.
Email Council Member Richie Floyd
CC: jayne.ohlman@stpete.org (to reach all Council members)
BCC: homerunsmatter@gmail.com (so we can track support)
Subject: Stop the 30-Day Process — Don’t Adopt a 90-Day One. Plan First.
Suggested message (feel free to edit):
Call His Office
727-551-3437
Quick script:
Hi, I’m [Your Name], a St. Pete resident.
I’m asking Councilmember Floyd to oppose any 30- or 90-day developer solicitation until the City adopts a lawful, site-specific redevelopment plan for the Gas Plant.
Please support a “Plan First” approach—adopt the framework first, then issue RFPs.
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Forward this post, share it on social, and copy your email to
homerunsmatter@gmail.com
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Full Letter Sent to Councilmember Richie Floyd
(Copied to all City Council Members – November 2025)
Subject: Stop the 30-Day Process — Don’t Adopt a 90-Day Process. Adopt the Right Next Step
Dear Richie,
I am also copying the other City Council Members.
Please amend your proposed resolution to stop the 30-day Gas Plant solicitation. Do not replace it with a 90-day RFP process.
Instead, adopt a proper planning-first process as the City’s next step.
Replacing one flawed approach with a 90-day RFP doesn’t fix the problem. It simply extends an unlawful and unwise process instead of redirecting the City toward what both the law and good planning require.
1. What the Law Intends — and Why Sequence Matters
The Gas Plant site lies inside the Intown Community Redevelopment Area, created under Florida’s Community Redevelopment Act (§§163.360–163.380).
The structure of that law reflects simple common sense: smart cities decide what they want before asking developers what they’ll build. The plan must come first — setting the street grid, public spaces, infrastructure, and goals — so that when developers eventually bid, they’re competing to implement a public vision, not define one.
This isn’t just a legal requirement; it’s sound business practice. No company would sell or lease a major asset without knowing its boundaries, access, or intended use. Cities shouldn’t either. Starting with a plan protects value, reduces risk, and ensures redevelopment serves long-term community goals rather than short-term marketing ideas.
2. Why Extending to 90 Days Doesn’t Cure the Problem
Whether 30 days or 90, the City would still be soliciting private proposals before a valid, site-specific plan exists.
That reverses the proper sequence and defeats the purpose of the CRA framework. It also exposes the City to risk: contracts entered into under a process not tied to an adopted plan can later be challenged or invalidated.
3. Why It’s Also Bad Policy — and Bad Business
Beyond legality, this approach makes poor civic and financial policy. It turns a public planning exercise into a competition of renderings, letting developers define what the city should look like — and what the city should pay for.
We’ve already seen how that plays out. The Ellison/ARK/Horus proposal includes ambitious ideas — an “innovation hall,” entertainment venues, and a “community fund.” But who decided those are our priorities? Who will pay to build and operate them? What evidence exists that they’re financially viable, or that they fit what St. Petersburg actually needs?
And most important: what is their track record? Have they ever completed a multi-billion-dollar, multi-decade urban redevelopment project? What evidence demonstrates the financial capacity and experience to deliver? None of this has been presented, and yet the City is being asked to entertain new proposals built on the same speculative model.
Just as troubling, the prices proposed so far appear far below fair market value for public land of this scale. Both the CRA statute and good business practice require the City to obtain fair value for any disposition of redevelopment property. Without a plan that defines parcels, infrastructure, and uses, the City cannot accurately price its land — and risks selling it for a fraction of its true worth.
When the City first plans the framework and sets clear standards, it can then sell each parcel at a price it determines, capturing full value for taxpayers and funding housing, workforce, and education initiatives citywide. That’s how smart cities convert planning discipline into long-term financial strength.
With this suggested 90-day process, we’ll simply get more glossy pictures and more oohs and ahhs — each from a single developer with its own untested ideas, not backed by a shared vision of what the City truly wants or needs. We’ve already done this twice before with RFPs, and the pattern is familiar: renderings come first, questions come later, and one person — the Mayor — ultimately picks a “winner.”
That’s not meant as criticism; it’s simply not a sound or sustainable process. The Mayor — any mayor — is not hired for this kind of work, nor should they be expected to have the expertise of a master planner or urban economist. Even the best-intentioned mayor lacks the tools and experience to make these highly technical judgments alone.
In fact, I recently spoke with a major Florida developer who told me, “I’ve built many high-rise buildings and have a lot of experience — but even I bring in outside experts before I decide what to do.” If the private sector seeks expert guidance before spending its own money, shouldn’t the public sector do the same before committing land that belongs to everyone?
The Mayor, like any mayor, is under pressure to produce visible results and naturally wants to show progress before the next election. But that’s precisely why the system is designed to separate executive ambition from land disposition — to protect public land from short-term political cycles.
The process outlined here — planning first, framework first — ensures that when RFPs do go out, every developer understands exactly what the City wants, how proposals will be judged, and what public benefits must be delivered. It turns opinion and marketing into measurable outcomes, and it protects both the City and the developers from wasted effort.
Smart cities don’t work any other way.
Denver’s Stapleton redevelopment began with a publicly led master plan that set the grid, parks, and land uses before any developer was chosen.
Washington, D.C.’s Walter Reed project followed the same sequence — the city adopted the plan first, then selected Hines to implement it under that plan and at fair-market value.
Philadelphia’s Navy Yard and East Baltimore likewise started with city-adopted framework plans before bringing in private partners.
Each example shows that planning first keeps public control, establishes real financial benchmarks, and captures long-term value for residents instead of handing the map to the first developer with a glossy rendering.
And it’s exactly how New York City was built. When the Commissioners’ Plan of 1811 established the Manhattan grid, it unlocked private creativity that gave rise to landmarks like Rockefeller Center, the Empire State Building, and the Chrysler Building — all made possible because the framework came first. That’s how innovation flourishes when public planning and private vision work in sequence and at the right time.
4. What the City Should Do Instead
Rather than extending the RFP, Council should stop the 30-day process entirely and start a proper planning phase.
Your resolution refers to developing “detailed criteria, guidelines, and benchmarks” for redevelopment. That’s the right instinct — but that work is the planning process. Those “criteria” are exactly what a Gas Plant Framework Plan should define: the street grid, land uses, infrastructure, public amenities, and community benefits.
The Mayor cannot and should not write those criteria alone. Establishing them requires a public process, with expert support and community participation. Otherwise, it becomes an executive-branch RFP dressed up as “planning.”
That planning process should also determine, with meaningful community involvement, how best to recognize and honor the history of the Gas Plant neighborhood — the families and businesses displaced to build the stadium — so that what replaces it restores access, opportunity, and shared benefit.
Specifically, the City should:
Hire a nationally recognized planning and economics team to prepare a Gas Plant Framework Plan defining the grid, parks, land uses, and development goals.
Invite developer input through a structured Request for Information (RFI) process — to gather ideas while the City retains control of the framework.
Focus the plan on core civic and economic priorities:
• Housing — including on-site units and broader citywide affordability.
• Jobs and opportunity — expanding local training and workforce programs.
• Helping children succeed — investing in early learning, after-school programs, and teachers through a permanent community fund.
• Resilience — addressing stormwater, flooding, and infrastructure citywide.
• History — determining, with community input, how the redevelopment can best honor and reconnect the community that was lost.Engage residents and business leaders.
Adopt the plan formally through City Council acting as the CRA Board.
Then — and only then — issue RFPs to qualified developers to implement what the plan calls for, using the adopted criteria and benchmarks.
That’s how you get competition that matters — real developers bidding to execute a public plan, not to invent one.
This sequence brings the City into compliance with state law, protects it from legal risk, and produces a redevelopment that aligns with public priorities, fiscal responsibility, and historical respect.
5. Why This Matters for the Mayor and Council
As I see it, the Mayor cannot lawfully create or issue “criteria, guidelines, or benchmarks” for CRA land on his own. Under Florida law, only the City Council acting as the CRA Board has that authority.
The Mayor’s role is to implement the policy set by the Council — not to substitute his own process for the statutory one. If the administration begins drafting “criteria” without Council direction, it risks acting outside the CRA framework and undermining transparency.
And again, this isn’t about personalities. It’s about structure. We don’t elect mayors to be master developers or city planners — we elect them to lead civic priorities. Complex redevelopment like this requires a disciplined, expert-led process where political goals and professional planning work hand in hand, not in conflict.
Council should therefore make clear that no RFP or 30-day process can begin until a lawful, site-specific redevelopment plan is adopted, and that creating those “criteria and benchmarks” must occur as part of that planning process, led publicly by Council.
Stopping the current process now isn’t obstruction; it’s responsible leadership and sound business practice.
6. HomeRunsMatter and Envisioning the Gas Plant
HomeRunsMatter’s Envisioning the Gas Plant initiative is working to coordinate with key community stakeholders — planners, business leaders, Gas Plant descendants, educators, housing advocates, and civic institutions — and stands ready to work with the City to support a more open, informed, and historically grounded process.
Our goal is to help the Mayor and Council launch a transparent, expert-driven planning effort that ensures the Gas Plant’s redevelopment becomes a national model for community benefit, fiscal prudence, and inclusion — while thoughtfully determining, with the community, how best to recognize the site’s history.
We can help facilitate this by bringing in a nationally recognized planner — at our cost — to a Committee-of-the-Whole meeting to brief Council and the public on best practices used successfully in cities like Denver, D.C., and Philadelphia, and how St. Petersburg can get started.
That’s exactly what happened in those other cities: the city worked in partnership with a civic group — combining public authority with independent expertise — to design a transparent, inclusive, and results-oriented plan.
The result was development that reflected the community’s vision, not just a developer’s proposal.
HomeRunsMatter stands ready to assist — as a partner, not a critic — in helping the City design a clear framework before the next stage begins.
I’d be happy to meet to set up a time for a meeting with the planner.
Best,
Ron Diner
Founder, HomeRunsMatter.com
