St. Pete's Williams Park gets its own business district in hopes of accessing revitalization money
By Janelle Irwin
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Mar 6, 2017

Businesses surrounding Williams Park in downtown St. Petersburg have come together to create an official business district to better brand the area and attract economic activity and development.

The 15-block area extends from Sixth Avenue North to Baum Avenue in between Central Avenue and First Avenue North and from Fifth Street to Second Street. The $70 million Museum of the American Arts and Crafts Movement will serve as an anchor to the district when it opens.

Creating a business district creates potential opportunities for neighborhood grants; it took about six months to accomplish in this case. The city doles out about $1.8 million each year for social service programs, arts support, events, redevelopment and neighborhood projects.

Justin Bean, a community activist who led the charge to create a Williams Park business district, hopes the city will eventually consider expanding the Downtown Community Redevelopment Area to include the Williams Park District. Businesses in the district would then have access to tax incremental funds earmarked for areas within those boundaries for economic development projects.

Bean said he'd also ask the city to consider creating a separate CRA to include the Williams Park area.

While Mayor Rick Kriseman's administration hasn't ruled out the possibility of including Williams Park in a CRA, the issue has not been discussed, according to Kriseman's spokesman Ben Kirby.

Creating or expanding a CRA is a complicated process rife with bureaucracy. The area would have to undergo a blight study and need to identify at least two problems on a list of criteria that includes things like crime, high rates of residential and commercial vacancy, greater incidence of building code violations and unsanitary or unsafe conditions.

Williams Park has for years been a hotbed for crime and a gathering place for the city's homeless, which could potentially qualify the area as a CRA.

If a blight study is conducted and the district is found in need of a CRA, both St. Petersburg City Council and the Pinellas County Commission would have to approve it. The process to create the Southside CRA began in early 2013 and took a year to move forward; creating the boundaries and approval for the CRA didn't come until June 2015.

The Williams Park Business District also includes several popular restaurants and bars including Souzou, the Galley, Yard of Ale, Cask & Ale and the newly opened rooftop par called The Landing. The district will also be home to a planned 24-hour diner, Diner24 DTSP.

Other businesses include some renovated hotels like the Hollander, Indigo Hotel, Cordova Inn and the Courtyard Marriott; St. Petersburg College, the Tech Garage and a couple of coffee shops are also in the area.

Efforts to pump life into the area began in mid-2016 in an effort to reimagine the park as a community amenity rather than a place to avoid. Bean and other volunteers created WIPA Live, a concert series held on the fourth Thursday of every month.

"It's becoming a signature event very much like a First Friday or Localtopia,” Bean said. "Becoming a district gives people a sense of belonging and something to work toward.”

The new business district is intended to give proprietors within its boundaries a greater sense of camaraderie and the ability to better work together to grow.

Janelle Irwin is a reporter for the Tampa Bay Business Journal.