ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (WFLA) — The City of St. Petersburg is proceeding with the Science Center project. During a Wednesday meeting, Mayor Kenneth Welch addressed West Side residents who had felt their opinions were overlooked in the process.
“I think the exciting part about this is that our constituents got to see this process work in real time,” said Copley Gerdes, city council member.
Dozens of emails, calls, and one packed council meeting later, the deal gets to move forward.
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“This is a giant win for the City of St. Pete,” said John Hoke, the Jungle Terrace Civic Association President.
With the city council having unanimously voted to initiate the five-year agreement, the final decision awaited the mayor’s approval. Welch hesitated due to concerns stemming from Hurricanes Milton and Helene, which highlighted vulnerabilities in the infrastructure, necessitating enhanced stormwater capacity at the Northwest Waste Reclamation Facility situated behind the Science Center.
“I am the only mayor in St. Pete’s history who’s had to instruct our citizens not to do laundry, not to flush the toilets. We had to shut down two sewer plants last year,” Welch explained.
8 On Your Side asked if the mayor had any honest thoughts about this decision biting residents in the future.
“This experience led me to decide against maximizing the capacity at that facility in the event it becomes the sole operational plant in the city once again. We’ll opt for slightly reduced capacity building, yet explore other mitigation strategies,” Welch added.
The mayor finalized his decision on Friday, following the council meeting, and by Tuesday, he circulated a memo to council members suggesting alternative West Side locations for the Science Center, like empty schools slated for consolidation or the St. Petersburg College parking lot.
Welch indicated that the council is open to supporting costlier solutions and possibly relocating the brush site for the Science Center’s renovation. Residents feel that a satisfactory compromise has been achieved.
“I think the city will still be able to be as resilient as possible while having a science center,” Hoke said.
The next steps are to execute the contract the city has with the people behind the Science Center deal. City staff will work on other ways to complete the infrastructure upgrades needed at the Northwest Water Reclamation Facility.
