ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 2, 2026--
The City of St. Petersburg has selected Blake Investment Partners, Related Group and their world-class team of local and national partners to redevelop the Historic Gas Plant District, beginning the largest and one of the most consequential development opportunities in the city's history.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260702654963/en/
“We are grateful to Mayor Welch for his confidence in our team. The Historic Gas Plant District carries real history, and we recognize the weight of what's being entrusted to us,” said T.W. Blake, Founder, Blake Investment Partners. “We’re connecting housing, culture, and commerce with meaningful community partnership to create lasting value for this city and its residents. St. Pete is not a market we entered for this project, it is home. We're ready to get to work and turn this vision into a reality.”
The Burg Bid proposal includes the largest delivery of affordable and workforce housing in city history, with more than 3,600 projected units to be delivered on and off-site. Accomplished local architects and designers will work alongside the nation's leading contractors and developers — including Related, Skanska, Greystar, Gilbane, Blue Sky Communities, Open Realty, and Stadler Development — to bring the vision to life.
The Historic Gas Plant site was once the heart of a thriving African American community, and Blake Investment Partners is committed to honoring that legacy throughout the development process. Key proposed public improvements include a 15-acre central park anchored by Museum Row as a cultural destination. The Woodson African American Museum will be our centerpiece. The concept respects the site's history and incorporates urban planning characteristics consistent with the city's waterfront district.
The team has established The Historic Gas Plant Visionary Panel, a permanent volunteer advisory committee composed of leaders from more than 20 organizations representing the heart of St. Petersburg. These leaders will provide ongoing guidance, feedback, and accountability throughout every phase of the development.
“Our team looks forward to continuing to engage with the community and with all stakeholders — including the other firms that submitted proposals — as it moves into the next phase of planning and partnership with the City,” added Blake.
Blake Investment Partners has assembled world-class national and local experts to support this project, including:
Link to Burg Bid’s Historic Gas Plant site
Link to renderings courtesy Zyscovich and Wannemacher Jensen Architects.
Link to video about the Blake Investment Partners proposal.
About Blake Investment Partners
Blake Investment Partners is an institutional investment firm focused on transformative real estate development and community-centered redevelopment initiatives. The firm has been a steadfast partner in St. Petersburg's growth for 23 years. With more than 200 completed projects across the Southeast and a portfolio that demonstrates both scale and sophistication, Blake brings expertise in mixed-use development, community planning, and long-term value creation. The firm's patient approach to investment and commitment to stewardship distinguishes it as a developer that prioritizes lasting community benefit over short-term gains.
Image Credit: WJ Architects (WJA) and Zyscovich
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia hammered Kyiv in an 11-hour drone and missile attack overnight into Thursday morning, killing at least 21 civilians in the city and injuring scores more in what Moscow said was retaliation for Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil facilities.
Loud explosions shook the Ukrainian capital, where more than 50,000 people sheltered in subway stations after authorities issued air raid warnings, the Kyiv Metro said. Emergency crews dug through the rubble of collapsed and charred apartment buildings all day in search of victims.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that the bombardment was in response to Ukraine’s recent barrage of long-range strikes, which have caused severe fuel shortages and put pressure on President Vladimir Putin.
Ukraine's frequent attacks inside Russia — described by Zelenskyy as a 40-day blitz — have especially targeted oil refineries, causing a fuel crisis that has frustrated Russians already feeling the war’s economic toll.
More than four years after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor, Ukraine’s technological advances in drone engineering have in recent months given it an edge, analysts and Western officials say. Its strikes on supply routes behind the front line have robbed the Russian army of momentum on the battlefield and made its progress slow and costly, they say.
Kyiv’s forces have especially targeted supplies to Crimea, triggering the worst fuel crisis on the Black Sea peninsula since it was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014 and delivering a blow to the Kremlin’s narrative that Moscow is winning the war.
Ukrainian officials say they are trying to force Putin to the negotiating table, but so far Moscow's response has been to hit back.
Diplomatic efforts to end the war, most recently by the Trump administration, haven’t produced results. President Donald Trump and Zelenskyy are expected to attend next week’s NATO summit in Turkey.
Putin thinks that time is on his side, that Western support will peter out and that Ukraine’s resistance will eventually collapse under pressure from strategic bombing, analysts say.
The attack killed 21 people in Kyiv, according to the country's Emergency Service. More than 90 others were injured, said Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko.
Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said it was a “night of horror” in the capital. Kyiv had a pre-war population of roughly 3 million people, but the current number of residents is unknown.
Damage was recorded in 30 locations across the city, mainly residential buildings and civilian infrastructure, according to Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration. Some 20 residential buildings were damaged, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said.
Flashes from exploding drones and missiles lit up the night, and loud booms echoed through Kyiv. Tracers from air defense fire streaked through the air as a huge pall of black smoke rose into the sky.
Kyiv resident Serhii Budko said three or four ballistic missiles hit his district of the city. “We were inside the shelter and felt the shelter shaking — the ceiling and floor, everything,” the 24-year-old told The Associated Press.
In Kyiv's Desnianskyi district, people were trapped inside a damaged nine-story residential building, and in the Darnytskyi district six levels of a nine-story building collapsed.
In Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region, meanwhile, a Russian guided bomb strike killed a 7-year-old girl and wounded four other people, including an 11-year-old girl, all members of the same family, regional head Oleksandr Hanzha said.
Russia’s General Staff chief Gen. Valery Gerasimov reported the results of the “massive retaliatory strike” to Putin, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said. The bombardment was “exclusively against military or military-linked targets,” Peskov said.
Russia's aerial attacks on Ukraine have repeatedly hit civilian areas. More than 16,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed in the war, according to the United Nations.
No reliable figures are available for battlefield casualties in the war. A report earlier this year by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank, estimated that up to 1.8 million soldiers have been killed, wounded or gone missing on both sides, with Russian troops accounting for most of that number.
The attack used “high-precision long-range weapons” and drones to strike weapons factories and energy facilities in and around Kyiv, and “military airfield infrastructure” in other parts of Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry’s statement said.
In all, Russia fired 74 missiles and 496 drones in the attack, Ukraine’s air force said.
Ukraine's air defenses have improved throughout the war, especially in countering Russian drones. But it is harder to stop ballistic missiles, which accounted for roughly a third of the missiles fired overnight.
Sybiha, the Ukrainian foreign minister, said in April that the country's weapons factories meet up to 75% of its military’s needs. But he and other Ukrainian officials have pleaded with partner countries to supply more Patriot systems that offer the best protection from Russian aerial attacks.
Ukrainian forces struck one of Russia’s largest oil refineries overnight in the Nizhny Novgorod region east of Moscow, starting a fire, Ukraine's General Staff said.
Also, Ukrainian forces struck a railway bridge over the Siverskyi Donets River in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region, it said. The bridge was used by Russian forces to transport personnel, weapons and military supplies, according to the General Staff.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
A residential apartment building is seen damaged after a Russian strike on Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, July 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
Elderly Liudmyla Tsapkova sits in her damaged apartment after the Russian missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, July 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Danylo Antoniuk)
People look at the site of a Russian missile strike that hit a residential building in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, July 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
A woman looks at an apartment building burning after a Russian missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, July 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Danylo Antoniuk)
People react at the site of a Russian missile strike that hit a residential building in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, July 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
People look at the site of a Russian missile strike that hit a residential building in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, July 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Danylo Antoniuk)
A residential apartment building is seen damaged after a Russian strike on Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, July 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
Smoke rises over the city center after a Russian attack on Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, July 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
A woman walks past a burning apartment building after a Russian missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, July 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Danylo Antoniuk)
An apartment building burns after a Russian missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, July 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Danylo Antoniuk)
A woman looks at an apartment building burning after a Russian missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, July 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Danylo Antoniuk)
