Southern Poverty Law Center to investigate Gas Plant redevelopment
February 9, 2024 - Officials with the Southern Poverty Law Center, a national civil-rights organization, announced that they are supporting Faith in Florida, a social justice nonprofit, in its bid to stop St. Petersburg’s redevelopment of the Historic Gas Plant District. According to a Feb. 2 blog post, the SPLC is investigating how the city first acquired the land, the use of eminent domain and how local officials “failed to produce sustainable employment or affordable housing.” The post adds that the SPLC “is looking into whether there is a way to stop a city that acquired a valuable swarth of property from profiting again … on promises it didn’t keep the first time.”