ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — For years, the Melrose-Mercy neighborhood in south St. Pete has gone without a major grocery store, and while the city is working with a developer to attract a new tenant at Tangerine Plaza, there's no clear sign on when a new grocer will move in.
"...Most of the time we have to go across in order to get to a grocery store. I think if they put it here inside of this community, it wouldn't only help me, but it would help peoples that is around that is in wheelchairs, people that got childrens, people that really in needs of different things," said Anne Stokes, who lives in the area.
"It kind of push us that don't have cars to have to catch buses. Sometimes we are not able to catch buses, and this was a good convenient store for us in this neighborhood."
Neighbors and city leaders agree that’s a burden.
The median income for this area is somewhere between $21,000 and $35,000 a year for up to three people, and of the five grocery stores around Tangerine Plaza, it would take 45 minutes to walk to the closest one.
In the next week or so, the city said it will be seeking proposals from developers to bring more business. “We want to think about this creatively and openly, but we also recognize that we've had two grocery stores before and they didn't work,” city spokesperson Ben Kirby said.
However, city council leaders said if developers want approval, they'll need to have a grocer.
"I will not vote to approve an agreement with anyone who does not have a solid grocery store option included in it,” Gina Driscoll said.
The city says it's in litigation with a developer who planned to build a gas station across the street. That plan has not worked out, so the city wants to bundle that lot with Tangerine Plaza to make it more attractive to developers.
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