The Jewel of Midtown to Close

Former Mayor Baker pushed hard to get a major grocery store in Midtown. Finally SweetBay stepped up and built the store at 1794 22nd Ave South. We never really knew what concessions were made to attract SweetBay to the midtown development, but St. Pete PD provided security for quite some time.

The store was a huge win for Baker and also a big plus for the Midtown community.

Now the store is closing, part of SweetBay's restructuring to stave off losses from growing competition, primarily WalMart. 

There is probably not much the City could have done to prevent SweetBay from closing the store, but the bigger question is what will the Foster administration do to replace a major loss to the Midtown community?

Since his election as Mayor, Foster has not placed the necessary emphasis on Midtown and Childs Park to keep the former administration's initiatives moving forward.

There have been some notable accomplishments in Midtown in the past year, St. Pete College will open a facility at 13th Avenue South, The Manhattan Casino is set to open, a new Soul Food restaurant will soon be operating and Corporate headquarters for Pipos Cuban Cafe will relocate to Midtown.

Foster has put little of himself into these efforts. More enamored by baseball, the Pier/LENS and the big money players in St. Pete, it appears south side efforts have been left to develop on their own. The Mayor can't even remember meetings with the SweetBay executives.

With no strong neighborhood associations and no strong African American voice in the administration, only the efforts of Wengay Newton and Karl Nurse help drive things forward South of Central Avenue. For all of his talent, it took everything former Mayor Baker had to keep the Midtown and Childs Park efforts going.  I can't think of anything Rick Baker worked harder on during his two terms than Midtown and Childs Park.

The last time we talked about it his eyes narrowed and his face tightened and he indicated he was deeply disappointed in how things are going.

South side efforts were the first ball dropped by Mayor Foster. Midtown was left in the hands of a reduced staff with limited clout and Childs Park was left to be cleaned up to a less than interested police Chief who only does what he is pushed to do.

The SweetBay closing, in reality, has very little to do with what goes on in Midtown or Childs Park for that matter.  For SweetBay and their parent company it is a business decision.

The current administration may try to lay some blame on SweetBay, but a much better approach would be to recognize that if they  paid as much attention to 22nd Avenue South as they do to Beach Drive, things could be considerably different.

e-mail Doc at: dr.webb@verizon.net, or send me a Facebook Friend request.