A three-year-old redevelopment proposal that would have brought a Moffitt Cancer Center to St. Petersburg is again noteworthy, as new plans for part of the site are moving forward.
However, Mayor Ken Welch is adamant that the city’s future still includes the renowned Tampa-based health care provider. He also highlighted overlooked discrepancies between the two proposals.
Welch said he has remained in contact with Moffitt’s chief executive officer Dr. Patrick Hwu and Beth Houghton, the local chairperson of its hospital board. City Development Administrator James Corbett has spoken with the institution’s leadership “within the past couple of weeks.”
“The conversations have never stopped,” Welch told the Catalyst. “We talked about other places that made sense in the city, including the Gas Plant, but other locations as well.”
Those potential sites include three acres of city-owned land at 800 First Ave. S. retained by passing on Atlanta-based developer TPA Group and Moffitt’s 2022 proposal. The firm offered $5 million for 4.56 acres in April of that year, about $1.1 million per acre.
Third Lake Partners paid $10 million for a 1.53-acre city-owned parking lot, about a third of the total TPA site, in September 2024. That equates to roughly $6.7 million per acre.
Welch said the previous deal “would have been a lot easier” if Moffitt were the sole applicant. He believes the cancer center would agree. “It would have had clear sailing.”
Moffitt could now have a larger footprint in St. Petersburg. The TPA project’s 30-story residential tower and 14-story hotel would have dwarfed the three-story, 75,000-square-foot cancer center.
Welch noted Moffitt would have only occupied half of the three-acre, still-developable site to the north. He could not justify a $19 million discount on the land, “knowing that down the line, we could have a high degree of success just working with Moffitt.”
“I believe Moffitt will be here,” Welch said. “I think they want to be here, and it’ll be much simpler and more straightforward if it’s just the city and Moffitt, and not a third-party developer trying to take advantage.”
The TPA project also encompassed the former UPC Insurance site at 800 Second Ave. S. Welch scrapped the proposal in August 2022.
Tampa-based Third Lake bought the bankrupt company’s former headquarters for $10.5 million in November 2022. The firm leased the adjacent parking lot from the city before acquiring it in September.
A joint venture between Third Lake and St. Petersburg’s Echelon Development submitted plans for a $225 million project at the site in April. TPA and Moffitt’s estimated project cost was $350 million.
The former proposal included 35 affordable and 35 workforce housing units, 330 market-rate apartments, a 70-key hotel and 300 public parking spaces. Echelon’s redevelopment – approved by the city council Thursday – features 824 market-rate apartments, 35,860 square feet of street-level retail space and 1,550 parking spaces.
Welch asked TPA to provide additional affordable units or contribute to the city’s housing fund. The firm “wouldn’t budge.”
“TPA was trying to benefit and get $19 million worth of reduced costs on that land, and to prove that, we sold a third of that property – not half, just the southern third – for $10 million and put that into affordable housing,” Welch added.
The city put $4.2 million from the sale into the Housing Capital Improvement Program trust fund. Officials said that equates to 290 rather than 70 affordable and workforce housing units.
And, perhaps most importantly, Welch reiterated that “we still have the land that Moffitt wanted to develop on.”
He also noted there is more certainty with the nearby Historic Gas Plant District’s redevelopment. The city is already discerning how to move forward without the Tampa Bay Rays. “So, I think there are a lot of opportunities when they’re [Moffitt] ready,” Welch said.
Moffitt has eyed Pasco County and St. Petersburg for expansion, prioritizing the former locale when the TPA proposal failed. The organization’s 360,000-square-foot Speros campus will open in January 2026.
“They know the city, when they are ready, is ready to move forward,” Welch said. “We would love to have Moffitt in our community, and we’ll continue to look for the right location and agreement with them to make that happen.”
St. Petersburg will soon have access to similar services regardless. Orlando Health Bayfront Hospital will open an expansive oncology and orthopedic center in partnership with Florida Cancer Specialists and Research Institute, Women’s Care and All Florida Orthopaedic Associates later this year.
This content provided in partnership with StPeteCatalyst.com
