Imagining possibilities for St. Pete’s 86 most contemplated acres

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The Foundation for a Healthy St. Petersburg, in partnership with the Tampa Bay Times, recently invited our community to lean in and learn more about possibilities and new perspectives for St. Pete’s 86 most contemplated acres. As the postmortem of past deals settle, new hopes have already begun to rise for the redevelopment of the Tropicana Field site. Whether its next iteration revives St. Pete’s long-term love affair with baseball or makes way for an entirely new complement of activities at the city’s center, it is critical that the process to determine its destiny be community-centered and anchored in inclusion, in keeping with its public ownership and our city’s values.  

We were pleased to kickstart that community conversation with Tuesday’s panel, the first in a series of three community engagements the Foundation is proud to present. The series will focus on what it means to be a healthy community and is an ideal illustration of the work that happens in the Foundation’s Center for Healthy Equity. Operating the Center for Health Equity is one of many ways the Foundation for a Healthy St. Petersburg activates philanthropy to create a community where good health allows all people to thrive. The Center regularly convenes neighbors, national thought leaders, subject matter experts, and fellow change agents so that they may listen, learn, connect and create ideas that advance equity.

Specifically, the racially-equitable health outcomes that are required for St. Pete to meet the fullness of its potential. The Foundation’s work through the Center for Health Equity is only one way it invests in change. Since inception, it has granted more than $31 million to improve the systems and conditions that shape our community’s health. The Foundation also offers capacity building, education, thought partnership, data, research, enlightening experiences such as Tuesday’s panel, and so much more.

The Foundation’s focus is on race, and the role it plays in the conditions that determine our health, because data points us in that direction. Our most recent health equity profile, published last year, shows that the racial disparities that remain pervasive throughout society result in a shocking reality here at home. People of color in south St. Pete are less likely to thrive than our white neighbors. They are more likely to experience life-altering chronic diseases, to be exposed to injury and violence, and to suffer the risk of early death. This is unacceptable. It is without any just cause. Nothing about it is fair or right and everything about it can be changed. So, together, with our community, we work to change it. Every day.

It is, in great part, what the panel and Spotlight Series that examines what it means to be a healthy community is designed to do. Convening the community to examine possibilities for St. Pete’s highest profile parcels of promise is a first step in the land’s next chapter. Our community must pool its intellectual and social capital to become a living laboratory of imagination for how this land might catapult our whole city along the margin of excellence from a great to iconic place that sets the standard for quality of life in America. We can do that with this site – its fulfilled potential stands to set a new standard for community-centered redevelopment. It’s up to us as a community – and the scope of our dreams. As our community looks to make life better for everyone who calls St. Pete home, we must inform our dreams in this regard with expert insight, community-centered dialogue, tested best practices, and an empowered citizenry that is clear about all that is at stake. The page is turning and it’s time to dream.

But, our dreams must be informed. Our bright ideas must be based in the requisite principles and values that define who we are as a community. This is about more than the redevelopment of a site… it is an opportunity to be record-setting in our approach, comprehensive in our contemplation and absolute in our insistence about who it should serve and how that will unfold. Everything from the selection of a developer to procurement processes; from housing options to the creation of career ladders; from culture incubators to educational opportunities and innovative entrepreneurial paradigms that boost our whole city’s economy  – these critical paths all present an opportunity to get it right with and for the people the site will serve.

All of this touches our health. These are the decisions that form the determinants, that cure the societal ills, that shape our health. And our health shapes our lives. So, let’s start again with our dreams for St. Pete’s most contemplated 86 acres, but let’s make sure those dreams meet the magnitude of this moment. Let’s insist they be backed by expertise, that they scale the leading edge of placemaking, and perhaps, most importantly, that they serve our city’s soul in ways that reflect, address and acknowledge the history of that site and the people who lived there before. Let’s do all of this in ways that build an equitable, stronger, more inclusive future for all who follow.

Tuesday night, as a community, we learned. We listened. We dreamed. And, our hopes for a community where good health allows all people to thrive became that much more real.

Dr. Kanika Tomalin is the President and CEO of the Foundation for a Healthy St. Petersburg. She is a former healthcare executive and two-term Deputy Mayor, who also served as the City Administrator of St. Petersburg.