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City may help with new apartments

 
Published Aug. 2, 1996|Updated Sept. 16, 2005

Replacing the vacant and dilapidated former Hood dairy near Interstate 275 and 54th Avenue N with a new apartment complex could require some public spending. How much the infrastructure improvements might cost is not known, but should be by Sept. 5, when City Council members hold a public hearing on annexing the 9.7-acre property into St. Petersburg.

City Council members on Thursday scheduled the hearing and spoke briefly with the local representative for the Texas developer planning to buy the property from Land-O-Sun Dairies. Wade Cullis, the representative for Flagship Properties, said the apartments would be comparable to those in the Gateway and Feather Sound areas, though perhaps more affordable because of less-expensive land costs.

As part of the annexation, Planning Director Ralph Stone said, the city could pay for infrastructure improvements. Those have not been defined, but the city's policy is to pay no more than seven times what the development is expected to add to the tax rolls.