St. Pete's Economic Development Discussion

​Three billion dollars. Ten thousand jobs. Less than one percent of St. Petersburg's land. In ten years, the Innovation District proved a thesis that used to be an argument.

​In that same decade, its own neighborhood lost 400 apartments renting under a thousand dollars while median income nearly doubled. In May, a lightning strike took out the marine science lab that anchored the district's fastest-growing pillar, and the recovery ran on phone calls and goodwill because no plan existed. In November, a single referendum decides whether the district gets the 25-year lease its next building depends on.

​Ten years in, the model works. The question this session asks is who it works for next.

​Four panelists holding different pieces of the answer. One runs the 560-acre district and is the only person in the room whose biggest project is on a public ballot in four months. One directs a university entrepreneurship center now ranked No. 11 nationally for graduate entrepreneurship and chairs a regional wealth network, so he knows exactly what regional wealth says about regional startups when founders aren't listening. One leads the organization where the region's small companies actually sit, and knows a company is leaving St. Pete months before any report does. One runs the county's small business and supplier diversity office, home to the largest non-dilutive capital channel in this county, and the one nobody in a tech room can name.

​The 727 has spent ten years proving it can build. The only question left is whether you're on the list of people it builds for.