Changes in St. Petersburg

If you've been away from St. Pete for more than 10 years, here are some things to look for when you come back to the reunion in May:

Do you remember Beach Drive? It was the downtown, very posh and ritzy shopping district near the downtown waterfront? Well, it's changed a lot. Not only new shops but lots and lots of verrrry tall condos.

On 2nd St. NE there is a huge (well, huge for St. Petersburg) shopping mall called "Baywalk". Has outdoor entertainment, a lot of neat shops, and Muvico theatres. (The theatres you remember from your childhood in St. Pete all died, but Baywalk has revived the joys of a downtown theatre.)

The Bayfront Auditorium you may remember has been torn down and is being rebuilt. I believe that the Salvador Dali Museum is going to move into that new building because it needs more exhibition space.

The old Al Lang Field is being made over into a new baseball playing area. (I haven't seen it myself yet. Perhaps one of you St. Pete residents can send us some description of it.)

There's a new St. Petersburg Historical Museum on the approach to the Pier. You can see a replica there of the plane that Tony Jannus flew across Tampa Bay when the first commercial "airline" in the US got its start.

The Jannus Landing block (Central Ave. on the north, 1st Ave. on the south, 2nd St. on the east, and 3rd St. on the west) has all kinds of restaurants, art places--it was the first area in downtown St. Pete to revive from a long period of decline and decay.

What used to be the Maas Brothers department store has been turned into the Florida International Museum (Just across the street from Jannus Landing).

In the old days, there NO large grocery stores in the immediate downtown area. Now a Publix has opened on the site of the former Dew Cadillac building, just south of Central Ave.

If you were a small kid growing up in St. Petersburg, you may remember the trolleycars on Central Avenue. They went away. But now there is a Downtown Trolley, sponsored by the City, that takes visitors and shoppers to various parts of the downtown area. Give it a try while you're in town.

Sunken Gardens, formerly owned by the Turner family, has been sold to the City and redone. It's located on 4th St. N. around 19th or 20th Avenue.

If you drive west on Central Avenue, from downtown St. Petersburg toward the Gulf Beaches, you will see lots of changes in streetscape, shops, landscaping, etc. The area south of Central Avenue has been revitalized for retail, streetscape, etc.. If you go south on 16th Street, from the stadium toward 18th Ave. and 22th Ave., you will see definite improvements.

Fourth Street North, which used to be filled with motels to accommodate the winter tourists, has redesigned itself and created its own merchant association. Motels have been torn down and replaced by other retail buildings or have been renovated for new uses.