One of St. Petersburg’s newest hotels will open in the next few weeks.
Construction crews are putting the finishing touches on the Tru by Hilton, a seven-story, 131-room hotel at 1650 Central Ave. in the Grand Central District. The hotel expects to get a temporary occupancy permit on June 20 and has started booking guests for July, said Josiah Gross, vice president of development for Menna Development & Management Inc. in Clearwater, the developer on the project.
That was a key takeaway from the second day of a virtual workshop centered around equity, inclusion and diversity hosted by Inclusivity LLC. The conference looked at systemic issues, such as health disparities that became more noticeable amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and racial injustice that rose to the forefront after the killing of George Floyd while in police custody in Minneapolis.
Green Book of Tampa Bay is an online directory of black-owned businesses. Both educators, Van Dyke and Bean met while working at Azalea Middle School, a predominantly black school on the west side of St. Petersburg.
Tampa Bay Businesses for Culture and the Arts is partnering with the Catalyst to present the virtual Charlie Hounchell Art Stars Scholarship program. Catalyst will air 7 preview episodes leading up to releasing the ceremony program.
Friday on The Catalyst Sessions, Creative Loafing editor-in-chief Ray Roa was asked about the future of Tampa Bay’s feisty alt-weekly, which like all print newspapers has taken a mighty pandemic hit through a mass defection of advertisers. Roa, who joined the staff as music editor in 2016, also talked about the necessity of alt-weeklies in cities with large populations and a venerable newspaper of record.
Mark Sharpe and Chris Bowen from the !nnovation Partnership discuss development and planning around the USF area. They also outline plans for rithm, the multi-use development replacing University Mall in Tampa with housing, offices, research and incubators.
If capitalism is driven by a search for profit, the food delivery business confuses the hell out of me. Every platform loses money. Restaurants feel like they're getting screwed. Delivery drivers are poster children for gig economy problems. Customers get annoyed about delivery fees.
Heather McGhee is an American political commentator, political strategist, currently a distinguished senior fellow and former president of Demos, a non-profit progressive U.S. think tank. Heather sits down with the Armchair Expert to discuss race in America and her theory that racism comes at a cost to all races.
Fifteen tech companies will take part in 2020 Tampa Bay Wave’s TechDiversity Accelerator cohort.
Participants include two companies from the Tampa-St. Petersburg area: Care Valet in Tampa and Oracle Health in Safety Harbor, as well as companies from around the United States and Latin America. See the full list of Accelerator companies below.
