Backstreets Capital’s Will Conroy, in partnership with Alex Schapira, a former Hines Development Partner for Tampa Bay, Anddrikk Frazier with Best Source Consulting, and world class firms Gensler and Stantec, have formed Foundation Vision Partners to chart a new way forward for the Historic Gas Plant District. We encourage you to review the full proposal here and join us in advocating for a smarter, unique and de-risked approach that diverges from the failed single-developer approaches of the past.

For more than 40 years, our great City has grown around this 86-acre historically significant site, waiting for the right path forward. We’ve seen repeated, multi-year attempts at large-scale, all-or-nothing proposals handed to a single developer. These approaches have led to years of delays, endless negotiations, failed contingencies, and ultimately, no progress. The city has tried this model multiple times – and each time, it hasn’t delivered for our community.

We’re proposing something fundamentally different: keeping 100% ownership and control with the City of St. Petersburg while we handle the essential groundwork. Our plan focuses on co-creating a thoughtful, community-driven master plan and building the critical public infrastructure (roads, utilities, greenspaces, and site remediation) over phases. Once complete, the City will have a network of ready-to-develop parcels that can be sold – block-by-block or in bundles – to multiple specialized developers (local, regional or national). This allows the district to grow organically over time and respond continually to our community’s evolving needs, voices, and opportunities.