A new group with former members of the Tampa Bay Rays and Hines’ development team submitted a proposal to create a master plan to replace Tropicana Field and lay the groundwork but let the city of St. Petersburg sell individual parcels to companies of its choosing.
Under Foundation Vision Partners’ proposal, submitted Monday afternoon, the city would retain full control and ownership of the entire 86-acre site. Foundation Vision Partners would create development-ready parcels. The city would determine what kind of development would go where — with guidance from Foundation Vision Partners — and sell off each piece when it gets the right proposal.
That would also allow the city to fetch better cumulative return on the land rather than unloading at once at a discount.
Foundation Vision Partners shared its proposal a day before a city deadline for proposals on how to redevelop most of the land when the Tampa Bay Rays are slated to leave after the 2028 season, though some land can start to be developed now.
The idea comes from Will Conroy of Backstreets Capital, former Hines development partner Alex Schapira, and Anddrikk Frazier of Best Source Consulting. Schapira and Frazier were on the Hines and Rays team that the city had selected to develop the entire site with a replacement stadium before the team did not move forward with the deal in March.
“You’re relying on a single developer to do all the master planning, all the infrastructure, all the vertical development, which is 40 some-odd buildings, and capitalizing it all, which is a $6 billion endeavor, something that a city of the size of St. Pete, equivalent to that, has never accomplished in the United States, period,” Schapira said. “And when Anddrikk and I looked in the mirror after three years in the project and said, ‘How can we better improve this process going forward?’ We think there’s a smarter way to do that, a smarter way forward.”
Mayor Ken Welch had staked much of his first term to the Rays and Hines proposal, which he called the Historic Gas Plant District, after the mostly Black community once located there. He had negotiated for affordable housing, a new Black history museum and job opportunities for minorities, only to see it fall apart when the team backed out following the 2024 hurricane season.
Under the latest proposal, St. Petersburg would pay an estimated $67 million up front for streets, sidewalks and green spaces. Foundation Vision Partners would get paid a percentage of construction costs along the way. The plan allows for different kinds of development on the site, including for other competing bidders to develop and buy parcels.
“[The city] can pick, on a block-by-block basis, who they deliver the parcels to,” Schapira said.
Throughout four phases of development, the city would pay $239 million total, according to the proposal. St. Petersburg’s contribution for roads and sewers under the Rays and Hines plan was $142 million.
Community Vision Partners estimates the 86 acres are worth $299 million today. They project that if the city were to hang on to the land and phase the sale of parcels, the city could stand to make an extra $210 million.
Having one master plan developer that would potentially control thousands of rental units is a “concentrated, centralized risk,” Conroy said.
“We think that alone would be a reason not to do the one-shot developer, winner-take-all, where a single entity is developing this,” he said. “So under our plan, we would co-create the master plan with the community.”
Engineering firm Stantec and Gensler, the architectural firm that was also part of the Hines and Rays group, are working with Foundation Vision Partners.
Foundation Vision Partners submitted a bid under a process triggered by an unsolicited proposal made by development team Ark Ellison Horus in October. All proposals are due to the city by 10 a.m. Tuesday.
Welch told reporters Monday after filing paperwork to run for reelection that selecting a developer could take months. Similar to the process for selecting the Rays and Hines, he said his staff will look at strengths and weaknesses of each proposal. There will also be a public forum where developers will present to the community.
Activists and community members behind No Home Run — a group that was against the Rays and Hines deal — have rebranded into Home Run Matters. They have campaigned to the city to enlist experts and create a plan for the site first before choosing a master developer.
City Council member Brandi Gabbard has an item on Thursday’s City Council agenda “expressing opposition” to Welch’s administration moving forward with selecting a developer before creating a planning framework. That vote could be a indicator of how much support Welch would have for selecting a Gas Plant development before the mayoral elections this year.
