St. Pete Commons | Start With the Park

Rendering of a wide open lawn at St. Pete Commons with families relaxing under live oaks and palms. — Artist’s conception. The community will design the park.

Reason 1

Start with a 30-acre, community-designed park

Think Boston Common, or New York’s Bryant Park: great public spaces that belong to everyone. St. Pete Commons would be roughly three times the size of Vinoy Park and five times North Straub Park, and its features would come from residents, not a boardroom: playgrounds, fountains, gardens, live music, farmers markets, sidewalk cafés, a walk-up coffee kiosk, and welcoming gathering spaces. Free to enjoy, whatever your budget, because our green space is what makes St. Pete special.

Concept site plan of the Trop site with the street grid reopened: arrows show walking, biking, and driving connections north, south, east, and west around a central 30-acre park. — Concept site plan, artist’s conception. The community will design the park.

Reason 2

Reconnect the street grid

For decades this land has been a sea of parking, walled off from the neighborhoods around it. Reopening the old street grid means you can walk, bike, or drive straight into the district from every direction, and it becomes a seamless, living part of downtown again.

Rendering of an evening concert at an open-air venue in St. Pete Commons, with families on blankets, string lights, and a small kiosk among the trees. — Artist’s conception. The community will design the park.

Reason 3

Save room for the community’s own places

Before a single lot is sold, the city sets aside parcels for the places that belong to all of us: museums, arts and cultural spaces, performance venues, and a permanent home for the Woodson African American Museum of Florida. That’s how this plan builds equity and keeps trust with the community: public assets come first, and the history and culture of this neighborhood are honored at the heart of the district.

As lifelong St. Pete educator Mozell Davis puts it, we should “look back but don’t stay back.”

Rendering of a fountain plaza at St. Pete Commons lined with ground-floor shops and sidewalk cafés. — Artist’s conception. The community will design the park.

Reason 4

Sell the remaining parcels at fair market value

Once the park, streets, and community spaces are established, the city, which keeps ownership and control of the land, sells the remaining parcels to multiple builders, not one master developer, at fair market value. That’s a fair deal for taxpayers, and it opens the door to new homes, hotels, offices, and ground-floor shops, restaurants, and sidewalk cafés, built well. This is pro-park and pro-progress: density done right downtown, balanced by green space that belongs to everyone.

Rendering of children playing in splash fountains at St. Pete Commons on a sunny day. — Artist’s conception. The community will design the park.

Reason 5

Put the proceeds to work for the whole city

Every dollar from those land sales goes back to the community: paying for the streets and infrastructure, funding a long-term trust that maintains the park forever, and supporting priorities like affordable housing, with benefits that reach far beyond the site itself. A park that pays its own way, and land that keeps giving back for generations.