Mayor prefers modifying rather than removing I-175

Mayor Ken Welch realizes it will take much more than reconnecting roads to mitigate the decades-old, systemic disenfranchisement of Black families and businesses in St. Petersburg.

Long-discussed efforts to mitigate an interstate’s negative impacts on predominantly African American neighborhoods in St. Petersburg recently received federal funding. According to city reports, construction of I-175 displaced nearly 4,000 people in the late 1970s.

However, removing the limited-access interstate spur bifurcating downtown and South St. Pete is not part of the Reconnecting the Historic Gas Plant District Project. Welch told the Catalyst that addressing past mistakes goes “much deeper than that.”

“It’s not just reconnecting neighborhoods to the south,” Welch elaborated. “It’s really the displacement of thousands of people, businesses and an entire community in the pursuit of economic advancement, and those 40-year promises that haven’t – to this day – come to fruition.

“Just taking down a facility won’t address those promises.”

Many communities used transit networks to replace redlining – denying minorities mortgages to ensure segregation – when Congress passed the Equal Credit Opportunity Act in 1974. In a trailer for the film Razed, a documentary of the Gas Plant’s plight, former resident Shirly “Rose” Smith-Hayes said the community was “too close to downtown.”

She said city officials would rather move Black families and businesses than help fix a neighborhood they called an eyesore. “This is just a part of what’s always been going on; this is the way we’ve always been treated,” Smith-Hayes said. “The whole system is never for us.”

The Gas Plant Neighborhood was razed to make way for the interstate and, eventually, Tropicana Field. File photo.

Welch is intimately familiar with the history. In October 2023, he announced the reconnection project near the former site of his grandfather’s lumber company, Welch’s Woodyard.

The business was among hundreds razed to make room for the 1.4-mile interstate. Officials promised revitalization and jobs for the Gas Plant community. They built what is now Tropicana Field without a baseball team.

Many residents fled to South St. Pete, which has seen a fraction of the economic prosperity emanating from downtown. Welch said stakeholders “need to be clear” on how removing or modifying I-175 would help right past wrongs.

“If it’s about walkability or reconnecting the grid, let’s just frame it correctly,” he added. “I think you can meet many goals.”

A ‘happy medium’

Local leaders believe two-way conversions and lane-repurposing on 8^th Street and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street South will help reconnect businesses and neighborhoods to the downtown corridor. Evan Mory, director of transportation and parking management, said one-way roads are less efficient and more prone to serious traffic accidents.

Using Central Avenue as an example, Mory said two-way streets with lower speed limits and adjacent parking promote businesses. “It’s also less confusing, especially for visitors or tourists.”

Mory said the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) budgeted $750,000 this year to study I-175’s footprint. While he wants to respect the process, his personal and professional preference is not the “do nothing” option.

“I don’t think we should stick with the status quo,” Mory said. “Some folks think there’s no chance of any changes, and I don’t really believe that.”

From left: Evan Mory, director of transportation and parking management; Councilmember Deborah Figgs-Sanders; U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor; Whit Blanton, Executive Director of Forward Pinellas; and Mayor Ken Welch announce the Reconnecting the Historic Gas Plant District Project in October 2023. Photo: City of St. Petersburg.

Welch said the spur brings thousands of vehicles into an expanding downtown. He also noted that “seconds matter” when transporting people by ambulance to multiple hospitals off the interstate, and St. Petersburg is a national leader for its under-five-minute response time.

“I think there’s a happy medium there where you raise parts of it, which frees up some space for development beneath it, and you still maintain your access to downtown,” Welch continued. “Some of the proposals I’ve seen make it a narrower facility.”

Mory said the city doesn’t need a 500-foot right-of-way along I-175. Welch believes some of that land could become affordable housing or something with a “true community benefit.”

“I’ve always been on the side that you need to keep it in a reduced footprint, get some more community benefits and increase connectivity and the grid system,” Welch said. “That, to me, is where we’re headed.”

Moving forward

Welch realizes reconnecting the grid and potentially creating multimodal pathways underneath the interstate is too little, too late for most Gas Plant businesses and descendants. However, he believes a now-tenuous $6.5 billion project is a much broader step in the right direction.

The Woodson African American Museum of Florida (right) will move out of a community center, and into the reimagined Gas Plant District. Rendering provided.

The Historic Gas Plant District redevelopment would feature 4,800 market rate and 600 affordable and workforce housing units. The Tampa Bay Rays and Hines development team committed $50 million to intentional equity initiatives.

The 30-year project would create 30,000 construction jobs. The development team also plans to spend over $500 million on minority and women-owned business contracts.

“I think rebuilding that economic empowerment piece of it is meant to be restorative in terms of that full business ecosystem that was lost,” Welch said.

In addition to the Reconnecting the Historic Gas Plant District Project, the city has partnered with the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority and FDOT to launch the Connecting South St. Pete CRA (community redevelopment area) Study. The community-driven initiative will identify strategies to improve multimodal access across area neighborhoods and commercial corridors.

The initiative’s final public workshop begins at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Campbell Park Recreation Center.