City Council - May 15, 2025

Welcome to the City of St. Petersburg City Council Meeting. Your elected officials are Mayor Ken Welch, District 1 and Council Chair, Copley Gerdes, District 2, Brandi Gabbard, District 3, Mike Harding, District 4 and Council Vice Chair, Lissette Kanowitz, District 5, Deborah Fig Sanders, District 6, Gina Driscoll, District 7, Corey Givens Jr. And District 8, Richie Floyd.

Good afternoon. We're going to call to order the May 15, 2025 City Council Meeting. Clerk, could we please do a roll call? Sanders. Driscoll. Here. Gibbons. Here. Floyd. Here. Gerdes. Here. Gabbard. Arding. Here. Kanowitz.

Here.

Okay. Today we will have our invocation given by our very own Council Member, Gina Driscoll, and then please remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you.

Lord, we stand here before you today full of thanks and praise for this beautiful day and for all that you have given to us here on earth. We humbly ask for your blessing upon our city and its residence so that the sun can continue to shine on all, reflecting the inclusive light of your love that touches each and every one of us as we are all created by you. Today, in these chambers, guide our hearts and our minds in the spirit of fairness and cooperation as we conduct the business of our great city. Impart your supreme wisdom upon our activities so that we may serve you through our service to others. In your name we pray. Amen.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Please be seated. Council Member Driscoll, thank you so much for that beautiful invocation. Okay. Council Members, we have an agenda in front of us. I'll entertain a motion for approval. I'll entertain a motion for approval. Second. We have a motion and a second. Seeing as no other Council Members wishing to speak, Clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council Members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present, Council Members have voted. Clerk, please tally and announce the vote.

Mr. Chair, a motion to approve the agenda passes unanimously with Council Member Gabbard being absent.

Okay. Council Members, we have a consent agenda. Clerk, do we have any comment on the consent agenda? No cars, Mr. Chair. Okay. I'll entertain a motion for approval.

Second.

We have a motion and a second on the consent agenda. Seeing as no other Council Members wishing to speak, Clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council Members, please enter your votes. Seeing as all present, Council Members have voted. Clerk, please tally and announce the vote.

Mr. Chair, a motion to approve the consent agenda passes unanimously with Council Member Gabbard being absent.

Okay. Thank you. All right. We will now move into open forum. Clerk, could you please read the rules?

If you wish to address City Council on subjects other than public hearing or quasi-judicial items listed on the agenda, please sign up with the clerk. Only the individual wishing to speak may sign the open forum sheet, only city residents, owners of property, business owners in the city, or their employees may speak. All issues discussed on the open forum must be limited to issues related to the City of St. Petersburg government. If you are speaking to an item on the agenda, you may only speak once, during the open forum, or when the item comes up on the agenda. In order to provide an opportunity for all citizens to address Council, each individual will be given three minutes to speak, and after which the microphone will be muted. If you wish to address City Council through the Zoom meeting, you must use the Raise Hand Feature button in the Zoom app, or enter star 9 on your phone at the time the agenda item is addressed. When it is your turn to speak, you will be unmuted and asked to state your name and address. At the conclusion of your comments, or when you reach your three-minute time limit, you will be muted. All raised hands will be lowered after each agenda item. Regardless of the method of participation used, normal rules apply, including the three-minute time limit on comments, the requirement that any presentation materials must be submitted in advance of the meeting and the rules of the quorum. If live public comment is disrupted by violations of the rules of the quorum, the chair is authorized to accept public comment by alternate means, including by email only, and we do not have any speakers in the chamber.

No Zoom speakers. Okay. No speakers for open forum. Then we will move right in to F1, a resolution approving a reinstatement and second amendment to the agreement for Autonomy LLC, and I think we have Celeste Davis.

Yes, thank you. Thank you.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon. Celeste Davis, Director of Arts, Culture, and Tourism. Thank you, Council Chair Gerdes and members of City Council. I have a report on the extension request for the Sunshine City Mosaic. So the timeline is August 16th, the Public Arts Commission approved the selection of the Sunshine City Mosaic to be designed, fabricated, and installed by Autonomy, which include Laura Spencer, Alex Kaufman, and George Rutkish at Sunset Park, located at 7400 Central Avenue St. Pete. On April 12th, City Council approved the $50,000 agreement with Autonomy to install the Sunshine City Mosaic, and there you can see how it fits into the park. On May 23rd, City pours the concrete sidewalk in preparation of the mosaic installation. On December 20th, 2023, Autonomy asked for and was granted a 90-day extension to complete the work and submitted all required documents. On June 10th, Council approved an amendment to the agreement that extended the term of the agreement for an additional eight months and 15 days. On March 6th, Council approved a second amendment for completion by May 1st. March 11th, Autonomy notified the Department of Arts, Culture, and Tourism that they cannot agree to the current completion timeline approved by City Council. They will need additional time to complete the Sunshine City Mosaic. Here I have just done a compressed timeline to show all of the actions that have been taken so far, and to also show how we got to the May 15th request for the Second Amendment to the Autonomy Agreement. Here is a video that will show the process that Autonomy is using to create the mosaic. I might ask the clerk for a little support. How do I get the video? Okay. Okay. It was a time lapse that illustrated the process and the detail that was required to complete the mosaic. I have with me the members of Autonomy that will also talk about the process and the timeline.

Good afternoon, Council. My name is Laura Spencer. I'm an artist here in the city of St. Pete, born and raised, and I am the designer and project manager for the Sunshine City Mosaic.

I'm Alex Kaufman. I'm also an artist in St. Petersburg. I'm part of the team as well.

Hello. My name is George Redkash, third member of the team here for the Sunshine City Mosaic.

With the three of us, we are three emerging artists that really love the city and have been working on this project since August of 2022. As three emerging artists, we all work full-time jobs in the art sectors here in the city of St. Pete. Both George and Alex are employed at MGA Sculpture Studios. I'm a full-time freelance artist, currently on leave from a mural project as we speak, in fact. So today we present our project to you for review and approval of our extension. As of right now, we have one final section of the 172-foot-long mosaic ready for assembly and ready for installation starting June 1st. This project comprises over 800 square feet and 15,000 individual pieces of tile. So needless to say, as three emerging artists, it's a project that has been quite large and quite ambitious. But we are so excited to share this love letter with the city of St. Pete.

At this time, Chair, we'd like to ask for a deferral, thank you, to address the installation of the piece and to adjust the language in the agreement so that we will not have to come back again to have it reassessed.

Okay. Council Member Driscoll.

Thank you. Thank you for bringing this item forward. And thank you to the artists who have remained committed to this project through what appears to be some ups and downs. I know that often, especially when you're doing a larger project, it is, you know, difficult to anticipate the time and also the challenges that may arise. Well, I guess first, could I ask why we, why it's being requested that we defer this item?

The agreement states that by May 15th, all sections have to be completed. But after looking that, that just cannot happen by the 15th. There's a section that has to be completed on site, there is, so in the agreement, it's in two parts. There's a section that has to be, all sections have to be completed, and then the second part is for installation. The agreement has been signed, but as we went over it, there are some tiles that need to be actually installed on site.

I'm just trying to figure out, because we've got this today, and I'm just a little confused, because usually when an item is deferred, that's brought up before the city council meeting starts, and it's discussed, so I might be missing something.

I decided to keep this item on the agenda, because, A, of being in my district and wanting the update, and, two, frankly, I wanted to hear the report and share some of my frustration, and that's why I kept it on, council members, so I'm sorry.

Okay. No, I, thank you, sir. I think that's fair. So now that part makes sense. The other question I have, actually, is for the artists, if we could have them come back up. First, thanks for all you do in your incredible contributions to our city through your work. You know, I'm a big fan. Thank you so much. We really appreciate that. Yeah. These are a lot, it's a lot of extensions. And so, I just wanted to give you the opportunity to share whatever you'd like about what has brought us to this point.

Absolutely. So, this project is a combination of all of our collective time, as well as the exclusive use of a very specific piece of equipment, and that equipment is a water jet, which is owned by MGA Sculpture Studios. So, to give you a little background on the project, we're designing this large-scale mosaic. Those pieces are then sent to the water jet and specifically cut out of the tile. You can imagine this similar to working on a stained glass project. That being said, this water jet is owned by MGA Sculpture Studios, and so our access is limited to after MGA's work hours and as long as the equipment is functional. In our very extensive timeline that is in our spec pack, you can see there are some grayed-out dates, and those dates are when the water jet simply was down, when MGA wasn't cutting and we weren't able to cut as well. So, that put significant hindrance on the process. And then, of course, our two hurricanes caused quite a bit of ruckus. All three of us had very intense individual needs to help our families recover as well. Do you want to speak a little bit more to that, Alex?

You know, we do also understand that every time we ask for an extension, it is asking for a lot. And I think, truly, we were optimistic with the timeline if we just push a little harder and a little faster. And the reality, we're very close. We're practically done with it now. Very minimal left. So, 15,000 pieces is just, it happens to be a lot. And because this is, you know, a big project for us, and it's in the city we live in, and we definitely want to promote it as well as we can, just didn't want to skimp on quality. So, time is where you have to pull from because, you know, it's a very specialty process. We developed this process from scratch. I reached out to a lot of, you know, other public art mosaic people that do this, and no one does it like this. So, you know, like you alluded to before, there's ups and downs with the projects. And, you know, we wanted to get it done, and we wanted it to be the best quality possible. And that is what we're bringing. And, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I guess I'm kind of trailing off. Yeah. Please. Thank you very much. Another thing to note is we are, at least the two of us, like Laura mentioned before, employed full-time at the sculpture studio, where we're putting anywhere from 40 to 60 hours a week into the studio's projects, and then somehow managed to do an additional 10, 20, 30 hours a week on the mosaic. Throughout the course of the last year to year and a half, we've been diligently moving forward on the project. And like Alex alluded to just previously, we are basically 98% cut, assembled, and ready for install. As Celeste alluded to just before as well, with the stipulation of the on-site installation, because of the length of the sidewalk and the scope of the project, and needing to get everything done and ready beforehand and get it all ready for install, we can do basically all of it except for two tiny little slivers. So when the previous agreement amendment came back to us early May, I think was when, and we saw that May 15th deadline to wrap the fabrication portion of the project, we knew it would be really close, but we felt like we just quite couldn't hit it. So then when we spoke some more, it came up to have the fabrication completed and ready for install by May 31st, and then with the installation to be fully complete by July 31st. The three of us feel very strongly that that's 100% doable. We're basically ready to begin install now. So there is, like we mentioned, the sidewalk has the two long portions and then the little center medallion, and just by the nature of the mosaic process and the length of everything, we have to leave out just very small sections on either side of the center medallion so that we can physically lay all of the rest of the tile, including the center, and then based on as-built real dimensions, once everything's in place, have a handful of pieces to cut afterwards so we can make sure everything fits correctly. There's no way, I'm all open ears, if we can, you know, have a different way to install those last portions, but, you know, over the length of, you know, say 90 feet or so on either side, small, you know, small adjustments would just be impossible to predict ahead of time. So we need to lay 99% of the piece in place and then take some measurements based on the gaps that exist so we can cut the remaining pieces and get all that squared away. So, again, we all feel very strongly by July 31st, which is the most recent agreement that's 100% doable. The main stipulation was the May 15th thing that was the reason we were not able to sign the most recent agreement.

Okay, thank you. Your detailed explanation gives us an inside look at just how complicated a project like this is. And I applaud you for really stretching yourselves as artists to do something that's a little different. And I understand that when you have that piece of equipment, that water jet, I get that because Mark needs it too, you know. Walt Disney once said that anything that's doing, anything worth doing is worth doing well. Sometimes that takes more time than what you planned. And so, you know, I support this because I do understand the reality of the project and the challenges that it can pose. At the same time, I'm really anxious to celebrate this, the completion. So are we. So are we. And, I mean, I look forward to that. But I do wonder, because we're getting into summer, we're getting into rainy season, and so I do wonder if there's some merit to looking at this to ensure that this is the last extension. How do you feel about, if we were to approve this today, how confident do you feel about completion by that date, given, you know, given Mother Nature is going to do what she wants to do?

For sure, given our Florida weather, we have definitely considered this heavily, and the three of us have already discussed our installation process. The installation process, we should be laying all the thinset tile, all 64 sections with thinset in place, and then we will have two teams of grouters come in and help to grout the mosaic as we're going. So simultaneously, we will be laying, then grouting. We'll lay that center section. Before we're even done grouting, Alex will have already cut these pieces that we need to place in situ. So the entire project should be moving in a flawless manner over the course of a three to five weeks. So ideally, we think we should have it wrapped up in about five weeks, but that's why the generous extension to July 31st is helpful to us because, again, if it rains, that puts a damper, quite literally, on our ability to install it in place, right? You have to consider this is similar to any sort of construction project. If you were to lay tile in your backyard or in your home, it is contingent on the weather and the surface preparation. So the sidewalk is ready and good to go. We just need to make sure we don't get hit with one of those five o'clock torrential Florida downpours, as it were. Right, right.

And is all of the water jet work completed at this point or?

All but what we need to wait until.

So we have one final section that is in the process of being cut right now. We've divided up the entire project into nine different sections. We are on our ninth center medallion section right now. This is being cut as we speak, and by the end, by the May 31st, we will have it all assembled and ready for installation June 1st.

Okay. Okay.

So there's no issue with that part of this point.

You've confirmed.

If there is a catastrophic issue, that's, again, something that, knock on wood, as much as we can. But we are full steam ahead. George is actually the kind of mechanic of the water jet, so that's his baby. It's his project. It's the heavy cross to bear that he has to carry. But she's in good shape. She's purring, and we're in a good spot for cutting. So we feel thoroughly confident that we'll be able to hit our July 31st deadline. 100%.

Okay. That's great to hear. Thank you. Given this, I don't really see a need for deferral, but I'm interested in hearing what my colleagues have to say. Thank you, Chair.

Yeah, you're welcome. It's my understanding that if we reinstate this agreement as of today, they would be in default of the agreement because they have to have begun installation as of today. That's why they need to change the date. They need to amend the original agreement to bring the installation dates back to us, because otherwise they'd have to leave here and go start installation. And finish today. That's why my recommendation was to defer.

I hadn't thought about that part.

Yeah, the completion date in the reinstated agreement is what they want. The problem is if we gave them this along with the reinstatement, they'd be in default as of today. Exactly. Yeah. This gives administration the opportunity to bring the whole thing back to us with the new installation date, along with the July 31st completion deadline. And in the meantime, the work in there, Celeste or James?

If I may, James Corbett, City Development Administrator, thank you for the opportunity to bring this before you. It's unfortunate that we weren't able to show the time lapse. I think you all can probably appreciate the intricacy of all the tiles that have to be cut and put into this. One other issue, and I'm looking at Councilmember Hanowitz, because what's in the contract is important. We want to modify the language as it relates to the May 31st date. Because as it states currently, even in this restating, and I apologize for the manner in which this came about. This was brought to my attention today. Obviously, this is not the way that we would like to do things. But the way that under the design and fabrication, it says that all pieces would be designed and fabricated by May 31st. And we just heard that that is not the case. So we need to reword the language to make it clear that all pieces, with the exception of these few pieces that have to be done once they're on site. And, you know, look at the as-built condition. So I want to make sure that the language in the agreement reflects what actually will happen. As far as the completion date, the July 31st, we actually gave 30 days more than what we were told they felt like they needed. So I think we're good there, but as has been mentioned before, we want to make sure, one, the agreement reads exactly like what's going to happen. But also that we can eliminate or avoid any possibility of having to bring this back. When we bring it back, we want it to be the final time. And the last time we talk about it is when we're all there looking at it being revealed. So part of it is just we need to make the legal language match what's actually going to happen.

Are you good there? May I?

Yeah, absolutely. All right. Thank you. Well, I'm just going to say, whoever discovered this or brought it up, last minute is never fun. And it is not fun for us because someone else's emergency becomes our emergency. And we're stuck with this. I'm also looking at, if you're bringing it back, our next city council meeting is June 5th. And I wanted to make sure that that is going to allow for continuation of work. That that's not going to present its own challenge because that's a few weeks away. And what happens in the meantime? And that could be a question for the city attorney's office.

So right now, the current agreement's terminated by virtue of the term ending in January. Now, performance is still continuing. So the way that the case law works on that is that we're still, even though that agreement technically terminated, so long as the parties continue to perform, we're still under the same terms and conditions of that initial agreement. So there is, as I understand, a desire for that performance to continue. I think a subsequent amendment can be prepared that memorializes the party's intent for the deadline to be extended until what the parties have agreed to between the city and our autonomy. And so that's what will be presented in June encapsulates the new term and understanding that the parties have been performing in the absence of an agreement between January and that June dates. And so that we have contract documents that provide a totality of terms for performance to date and through the end of performance. Okay. I apologize if that was belated, but please let me know if that doesn't answer your question.

Well, I think I followed, and I understand. All right. Thank you. This is such a beautiful project. I mean, I can't wait to see it when it's finished. So let's finish.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. Council Member Fick Sanders.

Thank you. Thank you. First of all, thank you for the presentation. And I think I am, well, first of all, I am extremely confused because I was reading the resolution, and I'm trying to figure out, we had the grand scheme of the project when we went into agreement the first time, right? Nothing has been added?

No.

Okay. So we knew what we went for when we signed on with the original date, right? Okay. And then we extended, made another extension.

There was a 90-day extension within the original agreement that our autonomy exercised.

Okay. So, and I keep hearing May 15th, May 15th. Where is this May 15th coming from?

The May 15th date is in the, because it's May 31st that we are proposing. Ben, can you answer the May 15th date?

I can't speak to a May 15th date. It's the, the operative date that I'm aware of is, is May 31st.

That's what I'm looking at. I keep hearing May 15th. What is May 15th? Okay. Because I kept looking, I was like, I don't see a May 15th and what the relevance of May 15th is.

I think the artists might have referenced May 15th as when they felt that they would complete that last section. I see it under notes.

Okay, so talk to me about the $50,000. How, how is that working?

Um, autonomy has received $40,000, $20,000, um, to initiate the agreement and then $20,000 once the design was finalized. So what's outstanding is $10,000.

Okay. So I don't, I don't mind granting the extension. First of all, let me be clear with that. But what I, what I do mind is the process, um, in that setting precedent. So I hope that we remember this when other artists or other things come to play that we'll provide the same. We're going to have to. Um, if we are sidestepping our own documents, that says something to me. Um, and I'm not sure when we found out what, um, but what if they don't finish by July 31st?

I'll defer.

I mean, they would, they would be in default of the agreement. Well, part of what I'm proposing is, uh, as we make this change to the language related to the fabrication, we, we want to make sure that we're, um, completely clear in an agreement with the artists that the July 31st is the absolute latest. If we feel like that needs to be adjusted to ensure that we, uh, eliminate the possibility of having to come back and ask for another amendment, um, then we, I will take that in consideration. And quite frankly, with the comments that were made concerning rain and other things, I think it would be prudent for us to go ahead and adjust that date before we come back.

Yeah. Cause I wouldn't approve another extension. I wouldn't. Understood. Um, so my thing is, I agree with the, the extension, not a problem with that. And we've already paid money up front, but we knew what we were in for. I heard a lot of certainty, uncertainty, we're barring the weather, barring the rain, excuse if we've already added those possibilities in that date of July 31st. Yes. Yes. Okay. So there will be no need for us to come back after July 31st.

There should not be, but I think that it would be wise for us to adjust the date before we come back to beyond July 31st. The original date, I think the, the artists would agree that, um, they were maybe, uh, very optimistic on the fact that things would go all as planned. And they maybe didn't anticipate the, the, um, the machinery not, not working in other factors, uh, because it is such an involved process, which is why, um, you know, I think the video, the time-lapse video would really kind of help you understand how involved it is. Um, but from the original agreement, I think that, um, the artists believed that they would be able to make that date. Clearly they, it was a overly optimistic goal. And my plan before we come back is to bring forth something that can realistically be done with no additional extensions. I would agree that I also have no desire to bring additional amendments to this. Uh, and we would love to see the artwork complete.

Okay, so when you come back, if, what, what date are you looking to take it past July 31st?

Do you have a estimate? I, I don't want to just say something right now. I'd like to talk it through with the artists to make sure that we account for any.

So is there any stipulation at the date that we approve on bringing it back? If it doesn't make it that they not get the remainder of the funds? How does that work?

Well, they can only get the funds if they complete the project. So if the project is not completed, they won't get the final payment.

Okay. All right. I, I, I was just looking at all of the extensions and was just wondering about the precedents we're setting. And I just want us to remain mindful, um, that this is something that we're setting a precedence about. Um, cause I do understand changes. Things happen. Things happen. Okay. Thank you so much for that. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. Vice Chair Anowitz.

Thank you. Well, I had the one, like person that had pressed the button and then you said you're going to defer, which was the right call because this isn't ready. And so one-on-ones would have probably been good on this for future reference to kind of give council an idea of what's happening. And that may have helped kind of clear up some of the questions you had here. Um, I know I asked for the, we should have had the contracts from the get, though. You guys took care of that and you provided us a contract so that way we, we understand what's going on. But I do want to say to the artists, you cannot wait till the last minute. When there is a date in a contract and you want to ask for extension, you do not ask for extension on if it's 60 days, if it's 90 days, you don't do it on the 90. You just don't, neither here nor anywhere. Whatever other contract you're signing, you just never do that because you cannot guarantee that you're going to get that extension. And you don't have time then to do the things you need to. So it's, it's wise to go back, figure out exactly how much time you're going to need, including the contingency time, and bring us an agreement that we can all agree on without any further extensions. Because you've had ample time to do this. And the problem that you have is when you're asking for extensions after the fact, it, you lose, the other party loses faith as to what's happening. And we want to have faith that you're going to get it done. And that's the problem. There has to be communication and there, everyone has to be on the same page. So that's just my two cents. I think we've spoken enough about this. Thank you, chair.

Thank you. Okay. Just quickly. First, James brought this to me and offered to totally take it off the agenda. I wanted to keep it. And so please, some of the confusion is definitely on me because I wanted the opportunity to hear this and to, and to speak with the artist. I did have a meeting set with them and then I ended up having 103 fever and couldn't go. So part of, part of this is certainly on me with some of the confusion and, and deferring. So, so please grant me some grace there because this, this is an important project. I think generally and very, very specifically to district one. So any, any, any grace you're, you're willing to give, please, please do. Um, so I, I totally agree, uh, with both council member Driscoll and council member Hanowitz. This is, this is an awesome project and I'm so pumped to have this in district one. We do not have anything like this and, um, it drives me bonkers to drive by it and see a bare sidewalk in the middle of a park, knowing that we've been waiting for this. And so I'm, I know it drives you nuts too, uh, and, and I'm, and I know that things happen, but when I look at this timetable and this was the frustrating part to me, and I know there, it just didn't seem like there was a whole lot of backup. There was almost three and a half months where essentially no water jet could be usable. Then you add another month, one month later, um, you know, there are, I, I know that everybody has different things and, you know, but it's like team not available out of town though. Like when you're, when it's late, that's very frustrating to me. I get that you have jobs. Trust me. I get it. I have to, I, I, I totally understand it, but also I struggle. And this is back to council or vice chair Hanowitz. You made a commitment. We have to stick to the commitment. So this has been, this has been frustrating for me. Um, now I want to make sure that you can complete it. I'm super excited. There is nobody will be smiling larger than me when we reveal this thing in district one. And so please do not let my frustration, uh, downplay how excited I am and the work that you've done and it's beautiful and all of those things. I would, I would echo everything council member Driscoll said, except like we've got, we have to be better than this. And so, uh, I hope I know I learned some lessons here and so hopefully we all did. Um, so I, thank you. Let's get the dates, right. We're going to, I, I have full faith that we're going to put a new agreement in place and let's, let's get this thing done. Council member Floyd. Thank you.

Something. Thank you, chair. Something came to mind for me. Sure. I, you know, my colleagues have already expressed frustration and excitement. Uh, the one thing I'll say about that is, uh, mosaics, one of my favorite art forms. So I'm excited a lot for that reason. And I love the park that it's going in, but, uh, yeah, I have the same frustration. I want to see it get across the finish line, but actually I wanted to bring up, um, and I'm probably going to do a poor job of asking this, uh, cause I can't remember the terminology, but this was, this is not a normal public arts project. Correct. Like there's uniqueness here in that it wasn't associated with the public works and it was specifically for local artists or am I misremembering?

So it's my understanding that the, uh, committee, um, wanted to use local artists and emerging artists.

Mm-hmm. Okay. And then, uh, what was the funding mechanism for it? Was it associated with the public art, a public works project?

The funds came out, um, were taken from the public art, 1901, the public arts fund.

Yeah. Was it associated with a specific public works project though? Cause that's often how it, um, goes down.

No, nothing in my research showed that it was, uh, directly related to a specific public works project.

Okay. Okay. So, you know, those two things are unique and I want to see us do more. You know, we've had discussions about this. I want to see us give more opportunities to local artists. I want to see us look to put art in places that aren't necessarily associated with public works project. It's one of the reasons why I brought up, uh, tweaking the ordinance and, uh, which we're working on. We had, uh, since we're in the sunshine, we had some delays because there was some state preemption we were worried about over the legislative, uh, uh, legislative time. Session. Yeah. Sorry. Lost that word for a second. Uh, although that's wrapped up now, so we're going to get back to it and hopefully we'll see it soon. Anyway, um, okay. I just wanted, I just couldn't remember how unique this was because what I want to see is us move in a direction where we do more like things that focus on local artists and focus on, uh, art outside of public works projects. And I just wanted to make sure that there was nothing structural here going on with the way that we went about it. But it sounds to me like, you know, it's just a unique situation for this, uh, piece. And, uh, now that I, I feel comfortable knowing that that's the case, so I'm not concerned about having to reassess anything in the future. I think we're on the right path. So, uh, thank you for answering those questions. Just wanted to make sure I had my head wrapped around it. Thank you, chair.

Thank you. Okay. Legal. Do we need to have a specific date on the deferral or can just defer until administration is ready to bring it back?

Either one. So you can, based on your manual, you can establish a date certain, or it can be to defer it until after a certain thing has occurred, which could be administration concludes their discussions with the artist and prepares the necessary amendments.

Okay. Thank you very much. Councilmember Driscoll.

Thank you. Can you commit to June 5th?

We just need to talk to the artist, make sure we get the right date. Because we are talking about time.

So, um, I, it sounds like there's not a whole lot to discuss and this is a few weeks away, but I'd like to have some certainty as to when we'll be able to get this, um, brought back to us. So I would, I would really like it if we could establish June 5th as the return date. Yes.

Based on what's left to do, the conversations that need to be had, I'm confident that we can have this back by June 5th.

That's great. Thank you. So I'll make a motion to defer this item, item F1, to the June 5th, 2025 city council meeting. Second.

Okay. We have a motion and a second. Uh, just quickly again, council members, thank you for your grace. Administration, same to you. Thanks for putting up with me. And, uh, you know, I had a learning experience today too. All right. No other council members wishing to speak. Clerk, could you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Oh, council member Hardy. Seeing as all present, council members have voted. Clerk, please tally and announce the vote.

Mr. Chair, motion to defer agenda item F1 to the June 5th council meeting. Passes unanimously with council member Garrett being absent.

Okay. We're going to move on to F2, a resolution authorizing the mayor to consent and approve the sale of the Portland departments. And I think we've got Mark Van Lue joining us. Good afternoon, Mark.

Good afternoon, chair, council members. I'm here today to, uh, request approval of the sale of the Portland apartment project. Um, I have a brief presentation here for you. Uh, just looking at, uh, the timeline of the sale. We received notice on February 10th of this year of the intent of the current owner to sell the Portland apartments. Portland is a 68-unit affordable apartment property located in downtown St. Pete. I've got some more information on that in a moment. And the units are a mix of one, two, and three bedroom and are restricted to tenants earning 60% or less of area median income. Seven of those units are restricted to 35% or below. So, the buyer, uh, proposed buyer for this project is Sunrise Affordable Housing Group. Uh, they specialize in acquisition, rehabilitation, and management of affordable housing, uh, multifamily projects. They have experience with, uh, LIHTC projects, low-income housing tax credit projects, uh, Section 8 contracts, project-based vouchers, and other affordable components designed for both families and seniors. Uh, if this, when this deal closes, uh, this would be their fourth affordable housing deal in Florida. And the second in Pinellas County. The, uh, terms of the sale, Sunrise is currently under contract to acquire the Portland in partnership with Pinellas County Housing Authority, whereby the housing authority will acquire the land fee simple and will ground lease the project back to Sunrise on a 99-year term. And the Pinellas County Housing Authority will also operate as the management agent and provide resident services to the tenants. The business plan, uh, that Sunrise has is to hold the property as is, and within the next few years, pursue a re-syndication of the LIHTC, uh, tax credits through tax-exempt bonds, and likely through tax-exempt bonds and 4% tax credits, and then initiate a substantial rehabilitation of the property to preserve and extend its useful life and to extend the affordability restrictions. And, uh, Sunrise is funding the purchase, uh, the $8 million purchase with equity from its balance sheet. A new senior loan plans to assume the existing subordinate loans from the City of St. Pete, and all, uh, loans given the ground lease will be leasehold mortgage. Brief timeline, uh, the project was initiated in 2009 when the initial agreement was signed with the City. The project completed construction, uh, I believe in 20, 2011, and, uh, went online. In 2018 was the first sale of the property to the current owner. Um, in 2020 there was a transfer of membership interest, so the current ownership entity transferred, uh, principal membership interest, and that was approved, uh, by Council in 2020, and that brings us to the current sale here in 2025. If you're not familiar, the project is on 3rd Avenue North, uh, just northwest of Mirror Lake at 8th Street North, and, oops, I think I'm, and this is a street-level view of the building. So, as, associated with this, uh, associated with this sale, um, the buyer requests the assignment by current owner and assumption by the buyer of the City's SHIP and LHALF loans, approval of the transaction that's required by the Workforce Housing Bonus Density and Intensity Agreement dated in 2009, the assignment by current owner of, and the assumption by buyer of the Workforce Housing Bonus Density and Intensity Agreement, the assignment by current owner and assumption by buyer of that certain Declaration of Restrictions that was, uh, signed and recorded in 2010, the subordination of the Declaration of Restrictions, Workforce Housing Bonus Density and Intensity Agreement, and the SHIP and LHALF loans to the first mortgage lender. The buyer is attempting to assume the loan from, that exists, uh, with the primary lender, but if that does not go through, then they will bring in new, uh, primary financing, and extend the maturity dates of the SHIP and LHALF loans from, uh, August 1st of 2045 to August 1st of 2070. And administration recommends approval. I'm available for questions, and we also have representatives from both the current owner and the, uh, prospective buyer of the project should they be needed for answering any questions.

Okay. Thank you. Vice Chair Hanowitz.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Mark, uh, for the presentation. Um, so, are the attorneys here? Good. I would like to ask you some questions.

Good afternoon, and thank you for your service. My name is Haley Sawyer. I'm with Strinds Weaver Law Firm, and we represent the buyer, Sunrise Affordable.

Thank you. And so, in looking at this, um, so, there are a lot of assignments, but then you get to the subordination portion of it. So, the subordination is not just the right of repayment, obviously. It's covenants that have to do with other issues, affordability, and so on and so forth. So, explain to me, I guess, why does affordability have to be knocked out if there is a potential foreclosure? Why would that be a requirement?

Yeah, so, I just want to clarify the intent here. The intent isn't to wipe out the affordable restrictions. Um, Sunrise is acquiring the project. As discussed in the presentation, they plan to do, uh, tax credit re-syndication down the road in a couple years. And as part of that, actually, additional affordable restrictions will be placed on the property. Um, regarding the subordination component, I think there's a few different elements here. So, one, we have the subordination of the city's current mortgage. And then, two, we have two different restrictions that are in favor of the city affecting the property. The first being the declaration of restrictions that was recorded and required in connection with the SHIP and LHAF loans. And the second being this density workforce housing agreement. Um, with regard to the first, the declaration of restrictions, I want to highlight that the city entered a subordination agreement with a seller's current lender. I think in 2020, um, pursuant to which the city agreed to subordinate that declaration of restrictions. And additionally, that declaration of restrictions was amended. And in that amendment, there's language expressly providing the city consents to the subordination of that agreement to a new first mortgage. Um, separately, I want to address the workforce housing density agreement. And I want to note that further conversations have been had with buyer's lender here, which is KeyBank, and as well as with city, uh, specifically the city attorney, Isabella Sobel. Um, and the, the main concern for KeyBank with the subordination, well, actually with the workforce density agreement, is that there's language in there providing that the property cannot be transferred without the city's consent. So, here, KeyBank is fine with the affordability restrictions remaining in place, but what they need some help from the city with is this provision restricting transfer of the property in the event of a foreclosure. Okay.

So, now I turn to other attorneys. So, Isabella, she made a couple of points as to the density workforce agreement and the declaration of restrictions and some of the issues that have arisen because they're there in terms of the bank. So, what is our position regarding that? And the fact that we agreed to do some of that subordinate those declaration of restrictions previously. I want to hear about that and I want to hear about the workforce part.

Hello. Good afternoon. Isabella Sobel, Assistant City Attorney. What Ms. Sawyer did, her summary is correct. I will say that the city has never explicitly subordinated any workforce bonus intensity agreement pursuant to Article V Chapter 17.5 of our code. Speaking to some of Haley's points regarding the lenders' issues with the transfer issues, I will say this is something that came at the very last minute and we looked at our code and in our code it requires city approval, administrative approval of any transfer of title of a property that is subject to our workforce housing bonus density intensity agreement so that it's something to keep in mind that we are we're bound by our code as it was written today so we're not able to provide flexibility on that. I think that we could it is possible to contract in a way that we could still abide by our code but that is the situation that we're in at this time.

Okay. Because when I look at this and I see these subordinations and the most important thing obviously if you're in the affordable housing space is to keep affordability and all these things in place. I understand there are times that they may have to foreclose something and you give up you subordinate your right of repayment. There are all these things but everyone that goes into this space understands this and so I want to make sure that we're not doing anything that puts those things at risk. I mean there were basically bargains that were made. that's why they got the density the workforce bonuses and all these things and now we are subordinating kind of everything we got and I don't want that to disappear.

Yes I completely understand the concern and I think the main point here and what we're asking for now and what we've gotten our lender comfortable with is entering in some sort of agreement between the city and the lender by which in the event of foreclosure which hopefully doesn't happen but in the event it does and Key Bank needs to take title to the property those workforce housing units remain as workforce housing units but they need the ability to take title to the property. That's the security of their loan right so I think we have a collective you know goal and understanding and

we you've come to an agreement now I understand but there is a little heart burn when it comes to this and so I just want to make sure that we're on the same page and obviously legal is on the same page on this but this is not typical for us is my understanding.

Not with the density bonus agreement that's

correct. So this is not typically what we do in terms of this so I just wanted to put that on the record and get your statements on the record in terms of what we can expect to happen with that.

Yeah and to that point in theory if they did foreclose and that workforce housing bonus was wiped they would actually be in violation of the zoning code because that agreement is what allowed the increased density at the property. So the lender is not even incentivized to wipe it out. I think you know I just want to highlight that point to it too.

I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Legal do you have anything to say on that on that point?

I mean on its face that's correct but there would probably be some arguments that it's a legal non-conformity or grandfathered use at that point and I don't know how we'd go about lopping off a couple floors to get it back into compliance. It would that that's an uphill battle from our standpoint as the city and enforcing that.

Nobody wants to be there.

Nobody wants to be there.

That's right. Okay well if legals are good with this I'm fine with it but I want to make sure that we all knew where we were and got certain things on the record. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilmember Floyd. Thank you. I guess kind of going off of that sales of affordable housing complexes we had discussions I don't know a year or two ago about them being done administratively. So I was going to ask like what was so unique about this because I was struggling to wrap my head around it but we had that discussion a little bit but it did look like Mr. Van Lue you were approaching the microphone so I would love to hear your thoughts on all of this as well.

Sure. I just wanted to make clear that while I realize there are bigger things at play here we need to get an understanding of what is the city's policy and procedure when it comes to the sale of properties and when it comes to the subordination especially of restrictions. This case is mitigated quite a bit by the structure of the deal and the fact that the housing authority is going to own the property and ground lease it to the buyer for 99 years. Obviously the housing authority's mission and reason to exist is to provide affordable housing and it's their intention to provide that affordability over that 99 year period which is longer than the current restrictions would provide. In addition the workforce housing density and bonus agreement that's in place provides for 30 years of affordability but it allows for affordability up to 150 percent of AMI and what's proposed here is a much deeper affordability over that much longer time period. So I do think in this particular case those things are mitigated by all of that but I do agree that we need to understand going forward how to look at these deals and how to structure these deals and where we don't have wiggle room. Great. Hopefully that's helpful.

Thank you. Yeah that is helpful and I appreciate it. Yeah you bring me some comfort knowing specifically around the housing authority being involved. I only had one other thing. There was a point that you had a bullet point that you had bolded about the maturation of the ship loan and the other loan and I just wondered if you could speak to that. You seem to have highlighted it.

Yeah so currently those loans are actually loans that are being repaid. The ownership of the Portland over the years has been great at making those payments. They've paid down a significant portion of that debt. That debt would have gone through I was 2045 I believe I had on there. Yeah. Yeah and so there the buyer is asking for those loans to be extended the maturity dates to be extended to align with the new financing for the deal so that it works better when they do the re-syndication of the tax credits in a few years. So they would like to extend that to August 1st of 2070. What it will mean for the city is the remainder of those funds will take longer to be paid back but it will you know be paid back well before the 99 year affordability period would be up and our other terms that that maintain affordability on the project. So while it will mean we'll get paid back a little bit slower it isn't going to negatively impact anything in terms of restrictions or anything.

And those those are no interest loans I think. Yes. Okay and but I'm assuming the position is that allowing that as part of this overall agreement a fine because we are you know there's other benefits here that we're going to receive. Okay. Okay. Yeah I see you shaking your head yes. I would agree. Nodding your head yes. All right. Cool. Thank you. Just wanted to make sure I understood. Thanks.

Council members.

Entertain your motion for

approval. Well chair. Yeah sorry. If I may. Yes. Sorry to interject. I do believe that there is a potential here for the city to gain additional protections with respect to the affordability period not being subordinated. The affordability period that's in the workforce housing density bonus agreement only. So it was kind of brought up by the attorney earlier and I think that you know if you wanted to explore that we could we'd be happy to have that discussion with you now.

Okay. I mean I think any time we could not subordinate that I think we'd like that to be a part of the discussion is that yeah so a

couple just procedurally a couple options on how to do that you could hold off on voting and vote later in the meeting on this item gives us an opportunity to confer with the attorney and potentially give you some specific different language in the resolution or elsewhere you could authorize our office to you could approve it as is authorize our office to have subsequent discussions make any changes that improve the city's position either way you want to do it if you want the specifics let me considering the public hearings you know don't start until five if you wanted to hold off and let us have that discussion if you wanted specific language or an answer we can do it today or you just tell us go forth and conquer as long as it improves the agreement to do it whatever whatever you

want council members I certainly take your feedback obviously I trust our legal department to move forward in the city's best interest so voting on it and giving them to do that or if you want to bring it back later council member or vice chair Hannah well I think

we have the attorneys here now and they can wrap it up that's probably going to be better for all of us so I don't see what the big deal is for us to kind of defer the vote on this because what happens is then they go and things don't work out the way you think they're going to work out and at least we're all here so maybe we can defer it a little later

council member of the sanders thank you and thank you for that Jackie so basically I'm in agreeance that I think you all have our best interest because you've heard our concerns so if we vote on it today you still have additional conversation to bring back to us in these regards or there's all different

ways to do it it could just be that it doesn't come back that provided anything that we do is improving the city's position that you're just approving it as is and then authorizing us to do that I'd say if you ask me what typically has happened in a situation like this in the past where we have the time like we have now like councilmember Hanowitz said we try to hammer it out report back you don't need to take we can just pick this back up it's not like you have to technically defer it until later in the agenda it could be a move on for now take up other business and give us that window to see what we can do okay all

right all right well then why don't we do that we'll give you time to work on that we'll move on to F3 and we can bring F2 back later on in the meeting would you do you want to do that before public hearing or after we could probably

I mean we should be able to do it before we'll update you and you're done your other business here on how long we think it might take okay great thank you

okay we're gonna move to F3 a resolution authorizing the mayor to accept a grant from forward Pinellas I think we have Cheryl Stacks Cheryl welcome

thank you thank you good afternoon Cheryl Stacks transportation and parking management I'm excited to be here today to present you with this opportunity a city-wide micro mobility expansion feasibility study this planning study would allow us to really gain a deeper and more significant understanding of how micro mobility programs could be expanded to provide more access to scooters and bike shares in st. Pete the opportunity is provided with support from for Pinellas they provided assistance programming in the past for their complete streets program and the city has been successful in being awarded funds for both planning and construction projects last year the program was repurposed and broadened in the types of planning assistance that can be provided to the local governments but they continue to make a hundred and fifty thousand dollars available in that category as well as up to three million dollars in the construction category they opened a call for projects last fall and conducted evaluations of the applications through this spring recognizing the change in the program with it broadened and less focused on producing complete streets corridors staff developed an application to address a timely need for planning assistance we've heard previously a desire to expand our micro mobility offerings outside of the downtown core and we know that the most attractive areas to do this are often our activity centers that have destinations that people would like to visit especially via scooters and bike shares coincidentally access to activity centers was one of the key evaluation of criteria that for Pinellas uses to consider the projects for award so we produce the map shown on this graphic here as a part of the application so you can see where the current micro mobility service area that's really for the bike share and where different activities sent countywide designated activity centers are located so you can see a little bit of overlap but not a lot we'd like to consider the feasibility of expansion with mindfulness of our existing regulations as well for scooters and bicycle use the study will include a review of our existing programmed and planned infrastructure keeping in mind the legal status of scooter users based on state and city regulations as a reminder the city's micro mobility ordinance provides that they should only be operated on low speed streets or in bike lanes they're prohibited from use on sidewalks and on certain trails including at the pier and have forced parking requirements to only park the shared devices and dedicated micro mobility corrals infrastructure considerations as well as destiny destination dust density excuse me outside of the dinetown core have been key limiting factors for why we haven't expanded access previously it's really hard for us to we really need to take a deep look at our connected network of facilities to make sure that they can accommodate trips that get people to and from where they want to go in a way that does so legally that they can ride on the streets where they are low seats low speed streets where they do have bike lanes where they do have these kinds of connections and so that we're not putting destinations where they would be required to ride illegally so that's a key part of why we need to look at the infrastructure when we're thinking about where do we expand micro mobility access it'll be important for us to include market considerations in our feasibility study too under the current license agreements with our micro mobility providers the city does not subsidize the provision of these services in fact the scooter operators pay the city a fee in exchange for the use of our right-of-way so there are service areas included in the agreements with opportunities to expand by mutual agreement however the market has seen consolidation in recent years and operational impacts that could increase the cost to the operators could have meaningful financial impacts that should be carefully considered when developing recommendations that would modify the service area boundaries this could be further exacerbated if enrollment and use in the providers access programs for low income users is increased too so having the providers at the table with us during the course of the study will be critical to success we don't want to change or interrupt too much of the business model that we have available to us even while we expand micro mobility access another key element of the study will be the review of our relevant city ordinance some of which haven't been updated in a while did I I went too far sorry got all I'm so excited about this I really am but so one key factor is the idea of updating our relevant city ordinances again some of these haven't been updated in a very long time for the bike ordinance wasn't up it was last updated in 2009 and it did was really forward-thinking and establishing the framework for bike share I mean you think we updated in 2009 but we didn't launch bike share until 2016 so it was a while for the technology to come up with our regulatory framework so that was really forward-thinking for us but the ordinance the regulations and the bike ordinance do not account for e-bikes the the micro mobility ordinance and adopted in 2019 is where you'll find those regulations along with a regulatory framework for scooter share so it's worth noting too that in the legislative session earlier this year the state passed a bill that if signed into law as expected would modify the definition of micro mobility so this study is a very timely and allowing us to consider the modifications in light of that change too at the state level we have had some recent success in expanding bike share outside of the downtown core this spring we work to develop new bike share hubs at certain public access points along the pinellas trail we did limit that to bike share given that bikes generally have a longer range of trip than the scooters the average scooter trip is about 1.12 miles in length whereas the average bike share trip is 1.8 miles in length so it's a little bit longer so that lets us get a little further from the core area and start serving those areas further out to the west to date we've seen over 50 trips at these locations since they were implemented the top three locations are listed here i think it's very notable that the second highest location 62nd street in the in the pinellas trail is is the second highest location and that has eight trips and it's pretty far west and it's really into the neighborhood so i feel really good that we're providing a couple people who must really need some good access that lets them get better into the downtown core and probably to some employment or recreational activities so we intend to continue to monitor the use of these locations and the study will have us also to consider to expand access and build upon this both geographically and with micromobility type scooters so the requested council action involves the execution of a funding agreement with forward pinellas for the study the agreement would allow the city to accept funds in the amount of 120 000 for the study it requires the city to use a consultant for the project whose professional services have already been procured by forward pinellas it's anticipated that the funding agreement would also be presented to the forward pinellas board at their june meeting for their consideration and approval the requested council action also includes execution of a professional services agreement with the consultant administration recommends executing the professional services agreement with benish one of the consultants available via for pinellas they were selected based on their experience and qualifications noted here with considerable experience in regulatory and micromobility planning in total the professional services agreement would be in an amount of not to exceed 150 000 with 120 000 coming from forward pinellas and 30 000 and previously appropriated fiscal year 25 funding within the transportation and parking management department specifically the scope of services that benish will perform include community engagement which will be critically important that'll be done in the form of an open house and surveys they'll perform an existing conditions review and an expansion feasibility analysis for up to five geographic areas of the city at the city's choosing and those geographic areas aren't very limited right they could be as large or broad as we need them to be as long as they kind of make sense they'll propose recommended updates to our city regulations they'll prepare a draft refinal report with an allowance to present those recommendations to a relevant city council committee finally they'll provide a final report and presentation which could include a city council presentation it's anticipated the full study would take about 10 months to complete once a notice to proceed is provided and there is a small allowance within the agreement that would provide funding to complete any minor relevant work that's not specified in the scope but may be identified as a need through the course of the study it would only be authorized if and when it's actually needed the action requested by administration would be the approval of the resolution presented it would have us accept the grant through the execution of a funding agreement with fort pinellis execute the professional services agreement with benish and other related actions as provided in the resolution that allow for the citywide micromobility expansion feasibility study and that concludes my presentation thank you move approval again we have a

motion and a second the only question i was going to ask was on the last slide and why kristana erica wasn't wearing a helmet on his bike but we have a motion in a second seeing as no other council members wishing to speak clerk could you please open the machine for voting council members please enter your votes seeing as all present council members have voted clerk please tally and announce the vote mr chairman f3 passes unanimously with council member gabbert being absent okay thank you all right we're going to go into our new business items we've got g1 a referral to hers from council member

driscoll thank you for this item i'm respectfully requesting a referral to the health energy sustainability sorry the health energy resilience and sustainability committee or any other relevant committee for an engineering staff presentation on the basin c project um i bring this up because recently we approved um the purchase of the salt creek property through um you know help from our friends with parks and public works and that project is part of the larger basin c project i thought it might be timely for us to do a nice review of the project because it has multiple wheels turning that all really really improve the resilience around lake mcgory

with that i move approval we have a motion and a second on g1 seeing as no other council members wishing to speak clerk could you please open the machine for voting council members please enter your votes seeing as all present council members have voted clerk please tally and announce

the vote motion to approve a gen item g1 passes unanimously the council member gabbert being absent

okay thank you we're going to move into g2 council member harding thank you chair respectfully

requesting a report to the city council at a june or july 25 city council meeting providing an analysis of the 2024 storm season the report should include lessons learned an assessment of the city's response both immediate and long term highlighting strengths and areas for improvement and any proposed amendments to the disaster operations plan with that i move for approval second okay we've

got a motion and a second on g2 seeing as no other council members wishing to speak clerk could you please open the machine for voting council members please enter your votes council member harding seeing as all present council members have voted clerk please tally and announce the vote mr chair

motion to approve a gen item g1 g2 passes unanimously with council member gabbert being absent okay thank

you all right now we're going to move into council committee reports h1 i am respectfully requesting city council approval of a resolution authorizing the issuance of a not to exceed 47 million dollar florida public utility refunding revenue bonds series 25a and a not to exceed 35 million florida public utility refunding revenue bonds series 2025 b and if there's no discussion i'll entertain a motion for approval we do have mr green here if you have any questions move approval second we have a motion in a second seeing as no other council members wishing to speak clerk could you please open the machine for voting council members please enter your votes seeing as all present council members have voted clerk

please tally and announce the vote mr chair motion to approve a gen item h1 passes unanimously with

council member gabbert being absent okay thank you let's move into h2 vice chair hanowitz thank you

chair respectfully requesting city council approval to remove the following items from the psi committee referral list that we just addressed at the last meeting this was a discussion on the enforcement of driving without a license and potential diversion options any discussion allowing mobile homes to be placed on residential properties to provide temporary housing during disaster recovery and repairs and with that

i still move second we have a motion and a second on h2 seeing as no other council members wishing to speak clerk could you please open the machine for voting council members please enter your votes seeing as all present council members have voted clerk could you please tally and announce the vote

mr chair motion to approve a gen item h2 passes unanimously with council member garbert being absent okay

we're going to move into h3 council member floyd hlut yep i am respectfully requesting city council approval to remove the following items from the housing land use and transportation committee referral list and it's the item universal basic mobility pilot program it was requested by the uh uh referrer

that we remove the item and i'll move approval second we have a motion and a second on h3 seeing as no other council members wishing to speak clerk could you please open the machine for voting council members please enter your votes seeing as all present council members have voted clerk please tally and announce the vote mr chair motion to approve a gen item h3 passes unanimously the council member garbert being absent okay thank you i'm moving right into h4 back to you council member floyd so uh we're

for this item we're uh respectfully requesting the approval of a resolution approving a three three-year agreements with one two-year renewal option with i'm not going to read all of this i'm going to ask administration if they have comments uh before we get into it i know that there's been some discussion on this item particularly no okay all right we're good to go all right then i'm uh respectfully requesting uh approval of a resolution approving a three-year agreements with two one-year renewal options with neutron holdings inc uh lime and phoenix oh my goodness do i read all of this yeah that's what i was gonna say like uh yeah there's a lot in here but it's our scooter share

program how do you think the clerk feels sometimes what's that you think the clerk feels sometimes oh

i know i mean i know i'm sorry yeah yeah it was the like d slash b slash a ush comma llc d slash b yeah it was all of that uh approval yeah i'll move approval okay yeah second okay we have a motion for putting me out of my misery yes

seeing some other council members wishing to speak clerk could you please open the machine for voting council members please enter your votes seeing as all present council members have voted click please how you can announce the vote mr chair motion to approve of jenna h4 passes unanimously with council member gabbert being absent that's what golden state calls an assist there council thank you thank you okay we are going to recess the city council and convene as the cra and we're going to move into cra2 a resolution finding the proposed plan to construct the 16-story mixed-use building at 300 central avenue consistent with the in-town redevelopment plan and we've got cory malishka i think but we went pretty fast so we'll give him a second welcome cory good afternoon cory malishka

is the official with the city of st petersburg how are you can get in the lights please thank you subject property today is located at 300 central avenue this property is currently developed with 11 story 37 000 square foot mixed-use building with ground floor commercial and residential units on the upper floors the existing building was severely damaged by back-to-back hurricanes that occurred occurred in september and october of last year the applicant is proposing to demolish the existing building and construct this 16-story building in its place that will consist of 48 000 square feet as well as 74 hotel rooms and will be approximately 4 000 square feet of commercial space and the construction cost is valued at about 20 million dollars this is the proposed overall site plan including the entire block the proposed project will consist of a 16-story building that'll be about 170 feet to 172 feet tall currently there is no on-site parking for the building the applicant will be providing at least 74 hotel rooms and the adjacent owner at 360 central avenue will be one of those persons that'll be leasing the parking the hotel lobby will also be accessible from central avenue as well as third avenue this is just a blow up with the site plan proposed elevations before you today the architectural style is modern the tile will have clean horizontal banding excuse me rushed out here with a facade creating sense of rhythm and balance the slim windows groupings and horizontal reveals amplify emphasize excuse me you want some water oh you got it thank you look at you just being helper today hey you know what happens when you run excuse me sorry about that also the airport height that is being proposed will exceed 158 feet a month above mean sea level so this will require approval by the airport and obtain an airport obstruction permit it's another view along third avenue third street excuse me with respect to compliance with the land development regulations the subject property is located within the dcc a mixed-use development with unlimited floor area ratio is allowed at this location the proposed far before he is at 8.0 staff determined that the proposed development is consistent with the zoning district standards and therefore the redevelopment is consistent with the redevelopment plan another view of the lobby from central avenue this is just a farther image this is a close-up again if you're across the street an aerial view looking down the existing downtown development pattern contains a variety of building types styles heights masses setbacks and orientations the building form and the relationship of the building are consistent with other development projects within the redevelopment area such as 200 central avenue which is under construction in this image there will be a 41 story building 408 feet tall and then 400 central which is of course also under construction this image is a 46 story building and that's going to be 515 feet tall and that's under construction again at 400 central the building design took into consideration the relationships of the newer older buildings within the redevelopment area for consistency staff has find that the proposed resolution for the proposed 16 story building 74 hotel rooms 4 000 square feet of commercial space is consistent with the redevelopment plan and we subject to the staff conditions and staff does

recommend approval thank you okay we're going to go into public comment sean kelly please approach either

podium state your name and address you'll have three minutes to address city council sean kelly address 575

second avenue south i'm the attorney for the applicant and owner and i'm happy to answer any questions that

council may have okay thanks sean welcome any other cards okay we'll go councilmember driscoll thank you

corey thank you for the presentation i want to talk and i like this project and it's about time like we've been waiting a long time for something new to happen here um but what we have right now is um in pretty bad shape um mainly because of the storms so i want to talk about the timeline particularly about the demo because normally if there's a demo it has to go along with like a short timeline than where something starts right so can you talk about how we normally do that and how we might be approaching this particular situation because it is different from some other um projects

so if the building official considers this substantially damaged which i believe he may they do not need to have an approved site plan or plans in for construction so that can be demoed tomorrow if the building official considers it substantially damaged excellent and is the

property owner prepared to proceed with um the demo request and activity um well as soon as it's as soon as that if if and when that determination was made right we we're not prepared to make that decision

right now because the determination hasn't been made yet right but i would like to update council on what we're doing to to secure the site because i think that that's most important so soon after the storms there's a little bit of a melee and netting was put up on the building to keep everything safe and prevent the stucco from falling subsequent storms blew that netting away so that's why we have what we have now we've submitted permits we submitted permits april 7th i believe for new netting and those are under review uh some of the reviews have been completed already we're waiting on the building department review at this point so then we will have new permits to hopefully put up new netting and that's our preferences to to secure the site if if the building is deemed substantially damaged we you know we wouldn't really have an option but to to demolish it we would hope that we'd have a little more time to to continue this process before that happened but if that's what the building official

determines and you know we have to do what we have to do the reason i bring up this now i know this is a a cra item okay so it's a little bit different but i bring this up now because one of the purposes of the intense cra is to reduce blight we we like this particular blight to be reduced sooner than later um i appreciate that it has been made safe but the the area around it is still um it looks precarious and the netting yeah i mean there's it's a mess right there and it's a prime corner which is why i know this this project is going to be incredibly successful and popular but man what we've got in front of us right now it's gotta go so i'm just kind of looking for a plan that aligns with the intentions of the in-town cra we are not in a position in this meeting to put conditions on this but know that that is a priority i know you there's a a process that you're going to be going through after today hopefully we'll approve this um and we'll see what it what it looks like um by the time that's that's done but it's really about this demo and then what happens between the demo and construction start um because that could be a while if if we're if you're granted the ability to demo soon so we want that but we also don't want a pile of dirt sitting there for the next year two years until things get going right so um and i'm kind of looking at both you and corey um to provide some guidance um actually not to provide guidance because we're not deciding this today i'm trying to get my thoughts out here as you move forward um hopefully in the process that i'm looking for demo sooner than later and um something that is pleasant in the meantime between demo and new construction does that

make sense it does and i i think you're asking me to respond to i would love for you to happy to do that um on the demo we just as a team haven't discussed a timeline yet so i don't want to you know mislead the council or prematurely commit to something but as i said before if if the building official makes a determination that requires us to demo the building that we really have you know no option and again we would hope that we'd have a little bit more time to get through this process before that would happen but you know we'll have to do what we have to do in terms of what happens with the site after its demo before we start construction the good news is that it's a it's a small site and that's part of what you know has been the challenge with this project it's a very small site um but i think that is a positive in terms of um making it look nice right it's not like the 400 central site that was an entire block that he fenced and you know turfed and all that this is a lot easier to do something like that and if that's a requirement of the cities we're happy to to talk about it um we are equally frustrated with the state of the building we don't like seeing it that way um so we share your frustrations we also share your optimism for the new project we're really excited about it we think it's going to be a great addition to that particular part of central avenue will really complement the new construction the bars and restaurants we think it'll be a great project um but we have to remember that this situation we find ourselves in was not our doing it's not my clients doing it was caused by by the storms right and unfortunately the entire city is i think still dealing with the repercussions of the storm so while we're not seeking leniency and that's you know certainly not an excuse it is sort of the reason why we are you know where we are today does that answer

your your question yes and i appreciate your candid response it means a lot that's all i have thank you chair oh and i'll move approval second okay thank you councilmember fix sanders thank you um i do

support this but one of the things that bring me so much unease is parking according to you wanting to to have a long-term agreement with your next door neighbor for 23 spaces where you're providing 74 hotel rooms and multi-use housing where they gonna park i do see a parking garage across the street and and not to mention adding to the timeline of your demolition generally demolition causes parking current parking to be blocked for safety so we're already having issues with parking so i think that's why it's extremely important that we have that timeline for demo and construction so we'll see how much parking we're actually going to be losing while you're going through this phase but again i'm curious we're we're a building a building with no parking none has been required or asked of on this project how are we expecting to continue to build for people to live but they don't have anywhere to park so how are we going

to try to address that in the future so there is code required parking it's not provided off-site which is permitted in the code so for the hotel use itself it is one room every for every four rooms and then the retail is one per every thousand square feet which equates to 23 parking spaces the code does allow since the site you physically cannot park on the property but the code allows off-site parking at a location within a thousand feet that's walkable to park if they have more surplus parking so the applicant has looked at a couple different sites such as the parking garage directly to the south that may be tight on parking but they can still have an agreement with them they're looking at mcnalty's parking garage which is within the distance as well as the parking garage next to the parking lot next to the cordova the applicant does have existing agreements with some of those garages for his existing build businesses and so this agreement goes through it's basically we call it like a parking lease it goes through legal for review it's between the two parties not the city but it is recorded in public record and so the parking has to be available on a continuous basis so they cannot just all of a sudden say i have no parking it's a code violation and then they would be cited by codes for not having the

required parking okay so how are the negotiations for those 23 slots going so i mean we take care of

that at basically the permit time so right now we're going through site plan approval at a streamline level that's going to be one of the conditions that they have this agreement and so prior to zoning signing off on that they need that agreement approved by legal and recording record and so we have that the applicant can kind of speak to uh we just talked about it this week and he can provide more

information on that um so our our first option best option is the parking garage right next door at 360 central um and the owner steve john filippo is is actually good friends with the family who own that office building so we've been talking to them for a while we have a draft of a parking agreement right now that we're you know slowly working on um we also as corey mentioned we have an option to lease spaces in the mcnulty lofts garage where ford garage is and that's public parking the owner has 17 spots there right now for one of for a different business but they're not required by code for that business so they could easily be used for ours for our project and so we'd be asking the garage to increase that by six spaces to make it 23 and that garage is within the radius that the code allows for off-site parking the third option as corey mentioned is a service parking lot open to the public next to cordova inn and that is owned i believe owned by a cardi who runs some of the parking garages and in valet and we think that a cardi would probably be doing the valet services for the hotel anyway so using their their lot for for parking would make a lot of sense the preference of course like i said is the the adjacent garage and so even if for for some reason the adjacent garage didn't satisfy the code requirements and we had to pick up mcnulty or the surface parking to satisfy the code we could still use spaces within the the tower parking garage just because it's right there and the owner says there's plenty of spaces we understand that you know parking is is an issue but we have options for that and we're we're working on those i'll also say to put a garage on this site would would probably just not work at all but i think visually it would make the block look you know whole block would sort of look like a parking garage and because the site's so small this building would be probably 20 stories tall it would look like a pencil on the corner there so we wouldn't want that either so the benefit of off-site parking is we avoid that and we get a better looking building that contributes

to the character okay so i was just asking about the residents that are going to live there and what their you know heart it would be trying to come home and long day and trying to find parking and you know grocery shopping and those of that nature yep um how it would impact them what's the time frame in notifying the surrounding businesses if the current parking spaces are going to be impacted for

construction i should clarify one thing it's a hotel um not oh not multi no no family no

multi-use condo with residents right oh okay that make okay that that maybe emphasizes it more okay okay well still if they travel like me with five and six luggage you know trying to get where i'm going no but that works but what's the notification of the surrounding businesses in regards to

parking um so much they would have to get approved as for an mot through the city's engineering capital improvements department to close off any of the right-of-way be it the sidewalk or the parking spaces and our engineering department with transportation reviews that i can't speak specifically to the timelines that comes out of their shop from zoni we'll send out what we refer to as a construction action plan and we ask a lot of these questions of the developer like are you closing sidewalks are you closing the bike lane are you closing parking because we want to see how it maybe affects the businesses because you do have a couple businesses right there to the west which includes you know a couple restaurants that are already impacted by the construction at two and 400. so we look at that we brought that to the greenhouse to see if the greenhouse can work with these businesses as well as any other concerns that may come up and once we get the cap approved then that goes through the mot process which again engineering transportation coordinate that and dot too will have to be involved because it's third street which is the straight state thank you yeah that was my

concern the current businesses and how closing those spots would impact them economically typically they

enclose right in front of their business so um or the building excuse me so um but i can't speak to not seeing the layout plan at this point um they might close more of the spaces on third than on central because they only have 40 feet of frontage on central and most of that is a landscape island it might only affect one or two spaces maybe um but again swear to that without seeing a layout plan

yet and thank you for that clarification i don't know why i saw multi-use housing in here somewhere but it's all hotel rooms okay thank you so much those are my questions thank you chair thank you councilmember

gibbons thank you so much and thank you corey thank you team for being here i appreciate the presentation um i'd be remiss if i didn't speak up and advocate for smart development um i'm all for development that improves our community's appeal um visual appeal all for eliminating blight um but we need to be cognizant of one the parking concern so i'm glad that my colleague brought that up that is a concern for me as well um but also the strain in our infrastructure um sewage capacity we need to be considerate of things like this as we move forward as a council um as a city i want us to be cognizant moving forward of the fact that we have 31 story building going up at 800 second avenue south a 16 story building going up at 300 central out 46 stories going up at 400 central another 30 plus stories going up at 200 central this is a lot so again i'm all for our city as it grows adapting to the change but i just want us to be cognizant with smart growth slow and steady not necessarily over development so thank you i appreciate

that those are my only comments chair thank you just one one quick uh comment chair so just the reminder of course like in in uh discussion like this you can ask some questions because this is a time where you're together as a body uh but just a reminder that your vote today the scope of it is consistency with the plan uh so you know normally michael and i keep a pretty close eye on the discussion to make sure it stays within that scope but because today it was questions and some feedback that was not phrased in a manner that affected the vote itself you know we right you know i did not intervene there but i do feel like it was appropriate to give the reminder before the vote thank you okay we have a motion

and a second seeing as no other council members wishing to speak clerk could you please open the machine for voting council members please enter your votes seeing as all present council members have

voted clerk please tally and announce the vote mr chair motion to approve a gen item cra2 passes unanimously with council member garrett being absent okay thank you we're going to move into cra3

a resolution finding proposed plan to construct 231 story buildings located 800 second avenue south consistent with the in-town redevelopment plan corey you're up again yes sir thank you chair thank

you council lights please when you get a second all right the subject property before you today is located 800 second avenue south the property is currently developed with a three-story 41 000 more or less square foot office building and service parking the applicant is proposing to demolish the existing office building and service parking lot and construct two 31-story buildings with 824 dwelling units and 3 500 800 square feet more or less of commercial space and approximately 1550 parking spaces the estimated cost is 225 million dollars this is the first floor plan showing the commercial space along second avenue as well as some of the uh entrances coming off of eighth and ninth as well as a little surface parking that will be within the building access off of third avenue and then you have residential lobbies uh both corners along third and eighth and ml king uh there is a revision to the plan where it looks like they probably will be adding some liner uh retail actually on third to actually screen the parking uh the proposed project again will sit on top of a seven-story base vehicular ingress like i said is coming from eighth and ml king there will be a 30 space low parking area access off a third pedestrian access to the commercial space will be from second avenue south pedestrian access to the lobbies will be along third avenue south and from the corner of eighth street and ml king the ground floor will consist again of the 38 000 of yeah 38 000 excuse 35 800 square feet of commercial space this is just showing the proposed landscaping the proposed project will of course occupy the majority of the site it will have perimeter open space located along all street frontages and this image just shows you that shown on private property as well within the right-of-way this is an aerial view looking down at the amenity deck and the two towers and how they're separated uh floors two through seven again will be parking the eighth floor will be devoted to amenity space and six dwelling units and floors nine through 30 will consist of eight dwelling units per floor floors 31 will consist of 10 dwelling units the applicant will be dedicating uh 50 foot of right-of-way along second avenue which has currently been uh private property it was vacated some time ago these are just some views of the building looking from the surrounding streets again the building is contemporary it's described by the applicant's architect the architect is defined by flowing roof lines that evoke gentle motion of ocean waves and the touch of the sky the facades combine glass and concrete the colony frame the ground level adding humanistic scale to the towers and providing shade above the podium each l-shaped tower is located towards the exterior perimeter of the podium leaving a large outdoor amenity area the two towers step back from the street above the podium and do include projecting balconies and a crown feature this is just kind of a nighttime view looking at the many space if you're hovering above the street or from a drone this is the back side if you're over in the shopping center that is directly to the south along third so the irp does include different design elements that we review for compliance such as compliance with the land development code submitted to the cra development shall provide architectural variety to the area infill development should create a sense of place new development shall relate to other buildings in terms of scale and mass development shall be consistent with permitted uses within the downtown and the intensity and use shall be governed by the underlying zoning district the subject properties and compliance with the land development code it is located within the dc1 district the far proposed is 7.0 staff determined that this is in compliance with the code as well compliance with the plan this is kind of a street level of view looking at the lobby area the proposed building does fit in with older newer developments the building will be urban with pedestrian oriented features including ground level commercial space lobby entrances screening of the parking garage and floor to ceiling storefront windows along the front this features also will have 10 foot wide sidewalk street street t street trees and landscaping bicycle parking ground level open space and a new drainage system there will also be a colonnade along the shops along second avenue providing protection from florida's weather pedestrian improvements will contribute to a pleasurable walking experience there's just another view kind of looking you can see the colony on the lower floor as well as the amenity space this is what it would look like from second avenue just the back side again if you're looking at from the uh existing shopping center to the uh south again the existing development pattern contains a variety of building types and building forms within the city other projects uh like camden central which is a 15 story building um 850 855 central avenue there's 400 central which is a 46 story building that's currently under construction uh the building also took design consideration into effect when looking at the layout of the proposed building relationships with the surrounding buildings there are actually a lot of underutilized properties surrounding this one staff does recommend approval of the attached resolution finding that the proposed two 31 story buildings with approximately 35 800 square foot of commercial space 824 dwelling units and 1550 parking space consistent with redevelopment plan subject to conditions that are in your report

thank you thank you okay let's go to public comment oh he and burger please go to either podium state your name and address for the record and you have three minutes to address city council uh

kyle heenberger 6056 29th street south i am with echelon development and am representing the owner's interest in the project i thank cory for his presentation and we're here to answer any questions okay great thank you

any other cards okay council member floyd thank you uh is this in the within the cra plan yeah i you know staff's reviewed it i feel comfortable with it but uh goodness um it's just very different from where we started here and it does feel like a little bit of a missed opportunity that's nothing to say anything about this development in particular uh but i just wanted to acknowledge that thank you thank you

move approval okay we have a motion and a second seeing as no other council members wishing to speak clerk could you please open the machine for voting council members please enter your votes seeing as all present council members have voted clerk please tally and announce the vote mr chair motion to

approve the geni mcra 3 passes unanimously with council member gabbert being absent okay thank you we are

going to adjourn as the cra and reconvene as the city council and i think what we're going to do council members is we're going to take a five minute recess come back and do f3 and then we'll take a longer break in between f or f3 or f2 uh f2 excuse me f2 thank you f2 and we'll come back do that item and then take a longer break before public hearings so we are going to take a five minute recess thank you everybody we'll call back to order our may 15th 2025 city council meeting and we are going to uh come back to item f2 i think council members you should have the red line version with some uh additional language in front of you council members any questions council member excuse me

vice chair hanowitz thank you chair and i just want um legal if you can just kind of walk us through it

real quick and that would be probably helpful before we do our vote vice chair yes um so um what we have here is instead of subordinating the workforce housing density bonus agreement i kind of coordinate that off and took a scalpel to this is more surgical where the main issue for uh the lender in this scenario was the ability to transfer the property on the event of a foreclosure um so that's really all they needed with respect to the workforce housing agreement so this this edit here authorizes the mayor to execute an agreement to consent to that type of transfer ahead of time so it's it's pretty

limited in its scope here great great this is wonderful so the attorneys are this is all great work for from everyone thank you all for like going back there and doing this so quickly um it's amazing

what attorneys can accomplish in so little time sometimes well we're happy with this yeah great the affordable the units would won't won't be touched they would survive uh and run with the land in the

event of a foreclosure that sounds beautiful well thank you for your work on that um do we have a

motion yet i'll move approval second okay we have a motion and second uh legal thank you so much for knocking this out thank you for helping us guide get here and then thank you for uh your willingness to work together okay we have a motion and second seeing as no other council members wishing to speak speak clerk could you please open the machine voting council members please enter your votes seeing as all present council members have voted clerk please tally and announce the vote mr chair

motion to approve a jenna f2 passes unanimously with council member garber being absent okay council

members that's all the work we can do until 501 so we will recess once again we'll see you at 501 thank you everybody thanks jessabella back to order our may 15 2025 city council meeting and we're going to move into our public hearings and we've got j1 j2 and j3 confirming preliminary assessments we've got joe wa joining us move approval j1 j2 and j3 oh second okay we have a motion and a second on j1 j2 and j3 seeing as no other council members wishing to speak clerk could you please open the machine for voting council members please enter your votes seeing as all present council members have voted clerk please

tally and announce the vote mr chair motion to approve of jen adams j1 j2 and j3 with council

member gabbert being absent okay thank you uh now we're going to move into our second open forum any speakers speakers in zoom or in chamber okay thank you mr clerk all right any announcements council members any announcements man we're making this easy i do have one that i just thought i would bring up for council member given's uh council member given's yesterday in our cappy meeting each year um we've been on a rotation of purchasing a um a lift for our kids at community pools this pool will be a child's park and so uh it'll be it'll be installed over the next probably 90 days so uh i thought you'd be excited to hear that thank you for sharing that chair what is this who somebody tried to get away with that huh i'm just telling you that's on my calendar yeah okay council members kim tried to slip it by us it's kim amos's birthday uh it's no tomorrow tomorrow it's tomorrow so we're going to sing kim happy birthday happy birthday to you happy birthday to you happy birthday dear kim happy birthday to you okay council members if there's nothing else for good of the order thank you for a great day thank you for a great day and please enjoy your weekends we are adjourned thank you everybody

you