What’s the price tag to move erased Clearwater cemetery? Likely millions.
The FrankCrum company says it purchased a 14-acre campus after a city promise that the graves were moved. More than 500 might still be there.

By Paul Guzzo
Tampa Bay Times
Published: Aug 9, 2023

CLEARWATER — The FrankCrum company contends that moving the erased segregation-era St. Matthews Baptist Church Cemetery from their 14-acre campus is the responsibility of the city of Clearwater, which once owned the property.

The first step will be for the city to hire an archaeology company to study the feasibility of moving the Black burial ground.

The Tampa Bay Times asked Georgia-based New South Associates, an archaeological firm that has relocated two erased Black cemeteries in recent years, how much the move might cost.

A cemetery with 386 burials was discovered on Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah. Moving it cost $1,659,043, or $4,298 per burial.

Another, with 106 burials, was found in Georgia’s Bibb County when the state’s Department of Transportation purchased land for a right-of-way. That move cost $533,831, or $5,026 per grave.

“Both included relocation to nearby cemeteries with the cost of plots and monuments and that is a cost that can fluctuate a good bit by location,” said J.W. Joseph, New South’s director of administration. “I would think $4,000 or so (per grave) would be likely for a straight relocation at this time.”

That means it could cost at least $2.2 million to move St. Matthews Baptist Church Cemetery if 542 graves are still there, as archaeologists have said is possible. That cost doesn’t include repair work to the property.

Most of the graves are under FrankCrum’s paved parking lot. Some are under Missouri Avenue and a sliver of FrankCrum’s building.

Stakeholders — those with family buried there, leaders of the city’s Black community and historians — and FrankCrum leaders have agreed that removing bodies that are under the building “is not practical,” said Matt Crum, co-president of the human resources company. “If the building is ever torn down, the city will need to remediate the area at the time.” But moving the others would “certainly include areas of paved parking lot and subsequent repair work.”

Zebbie Atkinson IV, who represents the cemetery’s stakeholders, said his group, FrankCrum and the city should find grants that could help offset the cost.

In 2019, Janet Cruz, then a state senator, suggested a sponsoring bill to provide up to $7,500 per grave to move Tampa’s segregation-era Zion Cemetery, which was erased and built over. It was instead decided to keep the bodies there and redevelop the site as a memorial park.

“It costs what it costs but it needs to get done,” Atkinson said. “This should have been done in the 1950s.”

That’s when the land was sold to Milton D. Jones, Chester B. McMullen Jr. and T. R. Hudd, who promised to move the cemetery. Headstones were removed and the property at 100 S Missouri Ave. was developed. Then, nearly a year ago, archaeologists confirmed that at least 328 graves are still there. But they could only find evidence that 11 of the cemetery’s 553 recorded burials were moved, so the other graves might all still be there.

The city bought the property in 1974, used it for municipal offices and later sold it to IMR Global with a development agreement that stated the land was free of burials.

FrankCrum, which purchased the land in 2004, has said that development agreement is why the city must now move the cemetery.

A spokesperson for the city said they would not comment due to potential legal action in the situation.

The stakeholders want the graves moved to the site of another erased Black cemetery in the nearby North Greenwood neighborhood. That 1½-acre cemetery with at least 55 graves is currently unused land owned by the Pinellas County School District and a neighboring parcel owned by the Homeless Empowerment Program.

All parties have agreed to that plan, Atkinson said, and that they need to figure out how much space is available. “We still have a lot of work to do.”