Legal Name of District and Date Established

The Tax Increment Financing District and Redevelopment Trust Fund for the “South St. Petersburg Community Redevelopment Area” (South St. Petersburg CRA Dependent Special District) was approved by St. Petersburg City Council on June 11, 2015, and the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners on June 23, 2015.

Public Purpose

The South St. Petersburg CRA Dependent Special District was established to remedy blighting conditions within the South St. Petersburg Community Redevelopment Area, pursuant to the authority provided by the Florida Community Redevelopment Act of 1969.

Boundaries

The South St. Petersburg CRA Dependent Special District is generally bounded by 2nd Avenue North, Interstate 275, Interstate 175 and Booker Creek on the north; 4th Street South on the east; 30th Avenue South on the south; and 49th Street on the west.

• CRA Map
• Legal Description

Services Provided

The South St. Petersburg CRA Dependent Special District provides a sustainable and durable source of financing to assist private enterprise in remedying blight and poverty in South St. Petersburg. The City intends to direct the vast majority of tax increment financing revenues that are deposited into the Trust Fund to provide direct assistance for private investment in residential and non-residential redevelopment in the form of grants, loans, property tax abatements or other vehicles that help businesses leverage capital from diverse sources. The City also envisions providing funding assistance to governmental and non-profit entities that provide array of services supporting the intent of the redevelopment plan, including marketing and promotion, business assistance and loans, workforce development and job readiness.

• South St. Petersburg Community Redevelopment Plan

Contact Information

Registered Agent: Rick D. Smith, Economic Development Manager
City of St. Petersburg
Economic and Workforce Development Department
One 4th St. N.
St. Petersburg, FL 33701
727-893-7106
rick.smith@stpete.org

Governing Body: St. Petersburg Community Redevelopment Agency*
St. Petersburg City Hall
175 5th St. N.
St. Petersburg, FL 33701
727-893-7117
council@stpete.org

*Staggered Four-year Term Lengths: St. Petersburg City Council is solely delegated the authority to serve as the Agency by the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners, pursuant to Sec. 163.357 and Sec. 163.410, FS.

Revenue Information

FY2021 Revenue*                      

* Estimates based on Pinellas County Property Appraisers Office "2020 Taxable Value by Tax Increment Financing District" as of October 9, 2020, (Pre-VAB) Tax Roll.

For detailed information on annual property and increment values, millage rates and City and County payments into the South St. Petersburg Redevelopment Trust Fund, view the South St. Pete Tax Increment District FY20 .

FY2021 Millage Rates                 

Statutory Authority for Levy

Section 163.387 of Florida Statutes, Community Redevelopment Act of 1969

General Financial Information

• Fiscal Year Period: October 1st thru September 30th
• Tentative Budget: Not applicable
• Final Adopted Budget: 
  
  • FY21 Adopted Budget for the City of St. Petersburg
  • FY21 Adopted Budget for the South St. Petersburg
• Budget Amendments: Not Applicable.
• Access to State Website   
• Final Audit Report: FY 2020 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report

Ethics

• FL Commission on Ethics

Legal Name of District and Date Established

The Tax Increment Financing District and Redevelopment Trust Fund for the “Intown Community Redevelopment Area” (Intown CRA Dependent Special District) was approved by St. Petersburg City Council on April 15, 1982, and the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners on August 3, 1982.

Public Purpose

The Intown CRA Dependent Special District was established to remedy blighting conditions within the Intown Community Redevelopment Area, pursuant to the authority provided by the Florida Community Redevelopment Act of 1969.

Boundaries

The Intown CRA Dependent Special District ranges throughout Downtown St. Petersburg from the Renaissance Vinoy Hotel in the northeast, Tropicana Field in the southwest, and borders Albert Whitted Airport on the southeast. It also includes the University Park neighborhood, the City’s waterfront park system and the commercial core of Downtown along Central Avenue. The City declared Intown a community redevelopment area in 1981 and prepared the Intown Redevelopment Plan (IRP) in 1982. The IRP also incorporated the Gas Plant Redevelopment Area and Plan—a plan initially approved in 1978 on the current Tropicana Field site—in 1983. The City established a tax increment financing district and redevelopment trust fund for Intown in 1982.

• Map of Intown CRA and TIF District
• Legal Description

Services Provided

The Intown CRA Dependent Special District provides a sustainable and durable source of financing for public improvement projects designed to catalyze private development in Downtown St. Petersburg. Some of the projects funded in the Special District TIF revenues since its inception include the construction of the new Municipal Pier and enhancements to the Pier Approach and Pier District, the development of two public parking garages, renovations to the Mahaffey Theater, partial funding to construct Tropicana Field in the late 1980s and later renovations to accommodate Major League Baseball, and acquisition of property throughout Downtown to consolidate development sites. Redevelopment of Tropicana Field is expected to begin in the next several years with a funding source from TIF designed to prepare the site.

• Intown Redevelopment Plan

Contact Information

Registered Agent: Rick D. Smith, Economic Development Manager
City of St. Petersburg
Economic and Workforce Development Department
One 4th St. N. 
St. Petersburg, FL 33701
727-893-7106
rick.smith@stpete.org

Governing Body: St. Petersburg Community Redevelopment Agency*
St. Petersburg City Hall
175 5th St. N.
St. Petersburg, FL 33701
727-893-7117
council@stpete.org

*Staggered Four-year Term Lengths: St. Petersburg City Council is solely delegated the authority to serve as the Agency by the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners, pursuant to Sec. 163.357 and Sec. 163.410, FS.

Revenue Information

FY2021 Revenue*

* Estimates based on Pinellas County Property Appraisers Office "2020 Taxable Value by Tax Increment Financing District" as of October 9, 2020, (Pre-VAB) Tax Roll.

FY2021 Millage Rates

Statutory Authority for Levy

Section 163.387 of Florida Statutes, Community Redevelopment Act of 1969.

Intown Redevelopment Projects

Overview of Intown

The Intown Redevelopment Area was established during a time when Downtown St. Petersburg was losing population and businesses to the suburbs. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Downtown St. Petersburg was identified by the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council as an “economically distressed” based on factors such as age of housing, per capital income, tax base, and unemployment. In 1981, 46 percent of the buildings in the redevelopment area were either in deteriorating or dilapidated condition compared with only 5.9 percent Citywide. Finally, when the Intown Redevelopment Plan was adopted the commercial vacancy rate exceeded 30 percent.

Intown Redevelopment Projects Funded with TIF (Pre-2005)

To remedy the blighting conditions facing Intown, the City of St. Petersburg has aggressively invested in public improvement projects designed to attract private investment. A combination of tax increment financing (TIF) and other sources were used to fund the projects depicted in Table 1 and Table 2. TIF is a method of facilitating redevelopment by utilizing future city and county real property tax revenues to pay for public improvements. A TIF fund receives the increase in city and county taxes from all future growth in real property taxable values from the year the TIF district is designated to pay for the cost of improvements. The Intown TIF fund was established in 1982.

Projects undertaken by the City between 1982 and 2004 include stadium development, renovations to the Municipal Pier, construction of public parking garage, land assembly, renovation to the Mahaffey Theater and Bayfront Center, streetscaping and museum development. Total public improvement costs for TIF funded projects were nearly $320 million in nominal dollars with tax increment financing funding nearly $54 million of it. Table 1 below describes the projects and cost allocation. A link to a map of these projects as well as those identified in Table 2 below is provided at the end of this section.

Table 1. Intown CRA Public Improvement Projects (1982 to 2004)

Notes:

1. Includes land acquisition costs.
2. To pay for the projects below, the City issued bonds totaling $72.5 million to pay for these improvements through four separate bond issues in 1984, 1985 and two in 1989.
3. Includes funding for new construction in the late 1980s.
4. $2.6 M of development cost was donated by the Mahaffey Theater Foundation as part of the 1987-88 renovations.
5. Paid for development costs related to Florida International Museum.

Intown Redevelopment Projects Funded with TIF (2005 to Present)

Beginning in 2005, the Intown Redevelopment Plan underwent a series of five amendments that eventually increased the redevelopment budget to its current amount of $232.354 million. The section below describes these amendments in detail.

In 2005, the City amended the IRP to extend until 2032 its use of TIF to fund public improvement projects throughout Intown (see Ordinance 715-G). In addition to renovations to the Mahaffey Theater, the extension was designed to pay for projects such as the Pier project and its approach, a mixed-use transportation facility, pedestrian and streetscape improvements as well as improvements to the waterfront park system. The TIF-related costs of these projects were approved by Pinellas County via interlocal agreement in the amount of $95.4 million.

In 2006, the City Council and Pinellas County increased this amount to provide an additional $2 million in tax increment financing proceeds to complete the Mahaffey Theater renovation project (see Ordinance 762-G).

In 2010, City Council approved the transfer of $2.5 million from the IRP budget category for “Pedestrian System/Streetscape Improvements” and $2.5 million from the “Park Improvements” IRP budget category split equally between improvements at the Duke Energy Center for the Arts and funding needed to complete the new Salvador Dali Museum. Pinellas County matched the City’s funding with monies available through the Tourist Development Tax. In 2015, the City amended the IRP to add $20 million in budgetary authority to fund public improvements identified in the Downtown Waterfront Master Plan approved in June 2015 for the Pier District.

Plan amendments approved in 2017 eliminated the “Mixed Use Transportation Facility”, a $14-million project that was first approved in 2005 in order to pay for up to $10 million in enhancements to the Municipal Pier Project and Downtown Waterfront Master Plan improvements in the Pier District. The remaining $4 million was allocated for Downtown Transportation and Parking Improvements throughout the Intown Redevelopment Area. The total Intown redevelopment project budget of $117.354 million remained unchanged.

In 2018, the City of St. Petersburg made the final amendments to the IRP during the reporting period (Ordinance 333-H,). The redevelopment program was amended to increase the eligible project costs by $115 million from $117.354 to $232.354 million, mainly to pay for costs related to redeveloping Tropicana Field, resiliency improvements for the waterfront, and parking and transit improvements within Intown.

Table 2. Intown CRA Public Improvement Projects (2005 through 2035)

Notes:

1. Indicates the fiscal year when the project is expected to be completed.
2. Figures have been rounded to the nearest dollar.

For an overview of Intown redevelopment since 2005, view the Intown Redevelopment Plan: Fifteen Year Review by Pinellas County.

Property Values and Tax Increment Financing Revenues (1981 to present)

The above projects were funded through tax increment financing (TIF), which uses increases in city and county ad valorem tax revenue after establishing a base year to fund redevelopment projects. The Intown Community Redevelopment Area is St. Petersburg’s oldest TIF district having been established in tax year (TY) 1981 with a $107.8 million taxable basis. The TIF district for Intown has been the most successful of the remaining CRAs funded with TIF. However, it should be noted that for sixteen years, the taxable value of the entire district hovered between $200 million and $300 million. Only since 2000 has the TIF district seen dramatic growth in taxable value, adding nearly $1.8 billion to the base by 2020 when property values exceeded $2.0 billion.

The onset of the economic recession in 2007 and the financial crisis in 2008 and subsequent years seriously impacted the taxable value and the increment, as reflected in a 19 percent decline in property values from their crest in TY2008 to their floor in TY2012. Since the 2012 floor, property values have risen by $1.25 billion pushing property values to $2.07 billion in TY2020 (see Figure 1 below).

Figure 1. Intown Property Values (1981 to 2020)

Figure 2 shows the growth in TIF revenues since 1982 in the Intown CRA which have increased from $155,000 in the first year to more than $21 million in 2020. Intown property values grew 131.7 percent from the inception of the TIF district to 1987. During this period, the City issued bonds in 1984 and 1986 to pay for construction of Tropicana Field, and TIF revenue was adequate to service the debt through 1987. Beginning in that year, however, Intown property values were either stagnant or declining through 2001, when values grew only 18.7 percent. In fact, Intown property values declined for five years in the period from FY90 to FY96, during which the taxable value of the TIF district decreased by $43.7 million. The net result of this decline and stagnation in property values was to force the City to expend $8.9 million in non-TIF revenue to cover its debt service. Property values would recover after the mild recession caused by the bursting of the “Dot Com” bubble and the September 11th terrorist attacks, growing 76 percent through 2004.

In the years after 2005 until 2009 property values grew by 67.6 percent, but the onset of the Great Recession shrank valuations by 18.8. However, Intown property values have grown so significantly since (over 153 percent) that a gap of $1.2 billion now exists between estimated and actual values.

The success of the IRP in generating significant TIF revenue growth since the recession has allowed the City and County to begin reducing their contributions to the IRP Trust Fund. In 2015, City Council approved reducing Pinellas County contribution level to the Trust Fund from 95 percent to 85 percent (Res. 2015-398). Amendments to the IRP in 2018 reduced both City and County contributions. In FY2019, Pinellas County’s contribution to the Intown Redevelopment Trust was reduced from 85 percent to 75 percent, while the City’s was reduced from 95 percent to 75 percent. Beginning in FY2023, the City and County contribution will be reduced from 75 percent to 50 percent (Ord. 333-H).

Figure 2. Growth in City and County TIF Revenue (1982-2020)

For detailed information on annual property and increment values, millage rates and City and County payments into the Intown Redevelopment Trust Fund, view the Intown Tax Increment District FY20.

General Financial Information

• Fiscal Year Period: October 1 thru September 30
• Tentative Budget: Not applicable
• Final Adopted Budget: FY21 Adopted Budget for the City of St. Petersburg FY21 Adopted Budget for the City of St. Petersburg 
  Note: Intown District is referred to as the “Downtown Redevelopment District”.
• Budget Amendments: There were no budget amendments for the Intown District in 2019.
• Access to State Website
• Final Audit Report: FY 2020 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report
  Note: Intown District is referred to as the “Downtown Redevelopment District”.

Ethics

• Florida Commission on Ethics

Legal Name of District and Date Established

The Tax Increment Financing District and Redevelopment Trust Fund for the “Intown West Community Redevelopment Area” (Intown West CRA Dependent Special District) was approved by St. Petersburg City Council on November 15, 1990, and the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners on January 29, 1991.

The Intown West CRA was originally set to expire on November 15, 2020. On August 16, 2019, City Council adopted a resolution requesting Pinellas County approval to extend the Intown West CRA until April 7, 2032, which is commensurate with the date the Intown Redevelopment Area will expire. Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners approved the request on October 8, 2019. As part of the approval, Pinellas County contributions to the Intown West Trust Fund expired on November 15, 2020.After that date, only the City of St. Petersburg will contribute to the redevelopment trust fund at 50 percent of the increment value.

Public Purpose

The Intown West CRA Dependent Special District was established to remedy blighting conditions within the Intown West Community Redevelopment Area, pursuant to the authority provided by the Florida Community Redevelopment Act of 1969.

Boundaries

The Intown West CRA Dependent Special District lies north and west of Tropicana Field and is bounded by I-175, I-275, Burlington Avenue North and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Street. City Council approved the Intown West Redevelopment Plan (IWRP) and established the redevelopment trust fund in November 1990.

• Special Dependent District Map
• Legal Description

Services Provided

The Intown West CRA Dependent Special District was created to capitalize on the development of Tropicana Field and the eventual award of a Major League Baseball franchise. The Plan recognized the neighborhood would become in the future a “key gateway area and a high activity node related to stadium activities.” Specific issues the IWRP attempts to address include little or no development focus, physical deterioration of structures and properties, poor visual identity and lack of a unified architectural theme or development pattern.

• Intown West Redevelopment Plan

Contact Information

Registered Agent: Rick D. Smith, Economic Development Manager
City of St. Petersburg
Economic and Workforce Development Department
One 4th St. N.
St. Petersburg, FL 33701
727-893-7106
rick.smith@stpete.org

 Governing Body: St. Petersburg Community Redevelopment Agency*
St. Petersburg City Hall
175 5th St. N.
St. Petersburg, FL 33701
727-893-7117
council@stpete.org

*Staggered Four-year Term Lengths: St. Petersburg City Council is solely delegated the authority to serve as the Agency by the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners, pursuant to Sec. 163.357 and Sec. 163.410, FS.

Revenue Information

FY2021 Revenue*                   

* Estimates based on Pinellas County Property Appraisers Office "2020 Taxable Value by Tax Increment Financing District” as of October 4, 2020, (Pre-VAB) Tax Roll.

For detailed information on annual property and increment values, millage rates and City and County payments into the Intown West Redevelopment Trust Fund, view the Intown West Tax Increment District FY20 .

FY2021 Millage Rates                  

Statutory Authority for Levy

Section 163.387 of Florida Statutes, Community Redevelopment Act of 1969

General Financial Information

• Fiscal Year Period: October 1 thru September 30
• Tentative Budget: Not applicable
• Final Adopted Budget: FY21 Adopted Budget for the City of St. Petersburg 
• Budget Amendments: There were no budget amendments for the Intown West District in 2020.
• Access to State Website
• Final Audit Report: FY 2020 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report

Ethics

• FL Commission on Ethics