PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — The cities of Gulfport and St. Petersburg are creating a bustling business district along 49th Street South.
“It borders the city of Gulfport,” said St. Pete city council member Brother John Muhammad.
Recently, both cities decided to make this area a business district. It's called the Fusion District, a new attraction between the two cities.
“We're merging the two cities together, fusing them if you will to really create some change and create the vision for what we would like to see on 49th Street South,” Brother Muhammad said.
That change includes beautification of the area and bringing in first responder services. All of this will be funded by the city of Gulfport and the South St. Pete Community Redevelopment Area.
“It's a mixed-use area both on the St. Pete side and the Gulfport side. So, we can have residences, we can have retail, we can commercial, and we can have industrial,” said Gulfport City Council member Ian O’Hara.
O'Hara hopes this will fill empty storefronts and bring more customers to existing shops like Fancy Nancy Professional Services.
“My typical day is mostly consumed with the Pinellas County school systems. I do a lot of their volunteer and background check and fingerprint,” said Nancy Dunham, with Fancy Nancy Professional Services.
Fancy Nancy and neighboring businesses are all on board for this. They hope it slows down traffic giving people a chance to look around.
“We're already naturally on a busy road. It also helps us slow that traffic down so the people coming through here can start patronizing the businesses,” Dunham said.
This project is still in the early stages. People who are working to bring it to life say they can always use more help.
If you would like to get involved, you can email our49thsts@gmail.com.