St. Petersburg, Florida - Downtown

Downtown

Downtown St. Petersburg is the Central Business District, containing high rises for office use, most notably the One Progress Plaza. The Tampa Bay Times newspaper is headquartered in the downtown area. The Poynter Institute, which owns the paper, is located on 3rd Street S.

The Mahaffey Theater complex, the Morean Arts Center, dozens of other art galleries, Haslam's used book store, The Coliseum, Palladium Theatre, and Jannus Landing are among the galleries and cultural venues featured downtown. Several prominent museums are located in the perimeter. Many of them have received notable accolades, including the Chihuly Collection presented by the Morean Arts Center, the Museum of Fine Arts, the Salvador Dali Museum, the Florida International Museum, the St. Petersburg Museum of History, and the Florida Holocaust Museum. The city also plays host to many festivals throughout the year.

Downtown contains the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, and a downtown branch of St. Petersburg College. The downtown perimeter also houses several parks, most of which are waterfront or lakefront. Straub Park is nearly a half mile long, boasts a waterfront location, and is home of the Museum of Fine Arts. The Vinoy Park Hotel has a waterfront location, a spot on the National Register of Historic Places, and a AAA Four-Diamond rating. The area contains Vinoy Park, which holds music festivals, including the Warped Tour. Nearby is the historic Tramor Cafeteria building, now part of the St. Petersburg Times. All of the above are connected via the Looper Trolley.

Most of the dining downtown can be found on or near Central Avenue or on Beach Drive near the waterfront. Central Avenue and adjacent streets also contain most of the active nightlife scene which includes bars, lounges and clubs to suit most tastes as well as two busy concert venues: Jannus Live and the State Theatre. The nightlife scene is credited to recent demographic and regulatory changes. In 2010, the city council voted to extend bar hours until 3 A.M., identical to cross-bay "rival" Tampa.

Tropicana Field, home of Major League Baseball's Tampa Bay Rays, is located in the western part of downtown. Until 2008, the team played its spring training games at Progress Energy Park, right down the road. This setup was unique, making St. Petersburg the first city that played host to its baseball team during spring training as well as the regular season since the 1919 Philadelphia Athletics. At the end of 2007, there was a debate over a new stadium to be built on the downtown waterfront at the current Progress Energy Park site. This new ballpark would have an overhead sail to cool game-time temperatures and catch rain. Tropicana Field would be demolished and replaced with prime residential and retail space. Completion of the stadium was planned for 2012; however, the proposal has been tabled indefinitely while a community-based organization investigates all alternatives for new stadium construction.

Jutting a half mile into the bay is the St. Petersburg Pier, a major tourist attraction with various activities. Due to its livability and myriad amenities, St. Petersburg's downtown has been rated among the best in the South. The area's beaches are a 10-mile (16 km) drive from downtown.

The Wikimedia Foundation had been located in downtown St. Petersburg since its founding by Jimmy Wales. On September 25, 2007, the Foundation announced its move in late 2007 from St. Petersburg to the San Francisco Bay Area.

St. Petersburg boasts the third-largest dedicated public waterfront park system in North America, with a waterfront park system that stretches 7 miles (11 km) and is used year round for public events, festivals and other activities. In the early 1900s, citizens and city leaders engaged in a long and boisterous debate over the future of the young city's waterfront space, with one side advocating for commercial, port and industrial development and the other side advocating for a long-term commitment to parks and public access to the waterfront. The public access and park contingent won the debate when, on Christmas Eve 1909, the city announced the acquisition of the waterfront land that is encompassed by the waterfront park system.

The city is also becoming one of the largest destinations in Florida for kiteboarding, a relatively new water sport, with locations such as Ft. De Soto Park, Pass-a-Grille, and Ten-Cent. St. Petersburg locals such as Billy Parker and Alex Fox have gained a reputation for being some of the best kiteboarders in the world.

The St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Club was established in 1924 and gained attention as the "World's Largest Shuffleboard Club" with 110 courts and over 5,000 members in the 1950s and 1960s.