Like Tropicana Field, St. Petersburg marina decision is mayor’s choice

ST. PETERSBURG — When it comes to soliciting business proposals for the St. Petersburg’s most significant redevelopment projects, only one thing seems to matter — the opinion of Mayor Ken Welch.

That’s not following best practices, procurement experts told the Tampa Bay Times.

The request for proposals for the generational redevelopment Historic Gas Plant District, home to the Tampa Bay Rays’ Tropicana Field, and now the overhaul of the municipal marina lack two major features: Weighted selection criteria and an evaluation committee that ranks the proposals based on those standards.

Selecting the preferred developer for the marina, just like with the Trop, comes down to just Welch. The City Council has control over executing an agreement.

“In my 35 years, I’ve never seen a proper (request for proposal) written without selection criteria,” said Warren Geltch, founder of the Tampa Bay chapter of the National Institute of Governmental Purchasing.

“What really stuck out to me is that the mayor has the sole authority to decide,” said Kirk Buffington, Fort Lauderdale’s former purchasing director who co-wrote a book called “Legal Aspects of Public Procurement.” “I’ve just never seen that before. Normally you have evaluation committees.”

In a statement to the Times, the city disputed the assertions.

“It is incorrect to state that historic decisions to redevelop the Historic Gas Plant District and the St. Petersburg Municipal Marina are being made in a vacuum with just one voice,” the statement said, noting that in the Historic Gas Plant development “we heard from nearly 1,000 residents and analyzed four developer presentations.”

The city said the solicited responses are reviewed, researched, and analyzed by numerous city staff members to provide strengths and weaknesses to Welch.

“We find this process to be fair, thorough, and effective,” the statement said.

The request for proposals for the Trop redevelopment and the marina concern leases of real property, which are exempted from procurement procedures. But, they also call for construction.

“The mayor is going to make the final selection on this,” Administrative & Finance Managing Director Joe Zeoli said Monday at a meeting of people interesting in submitting redevelopment proposals for the marina. “The mayor, when he looked at it, really felt that that would be the better way to move this project forward. This has been a project that’s very important for the community. And so he’s kind of taken that directly.”

Welch’s administration stuck with the same template former Mayor Rick Kriseman used in his search for a Trop developer. The selection of a developer for the Trop came down to only Welch, though staff did compile a strengths and weaknesses report. His deliberations were not public.

Zeoli said staff would also do a strengths and weaknesses report for the marina proposals.

As for the marina, now under a second request for proposals, the city is seeking a developer that would take over operations in exchange for replacing docks and restoring seawalls.

This time, the city is seeking a development team with saltwater experience — a sticking point with a prior group that submitted a bid under Kriseman’s administration.

The city’s request for proposals includes “guiding principles,” “elements to be addressed by proposers” and requirements broken down by development team, financial information and deadlines.

But there is no selection criteria. Nor will there be an evaluation committee that ranks the proposals and chooses the one with the highest score. That’s how city officials chose a consultant to study the future use of Albert Whitted Airport, also on the charter-protected waterfront.

“You want your developers to feel like they’re getting a fair chance and you want the citizens to believe in the process to get you the highest and best use of the property,” said Buffington.

That kind of vague selection could cause legal problems later.

“If you can prove to a court that the process and the decision is arbitrary and capricious, or is flawed one way or the other, than you can have a good lawsuit,” said Glenn Cummings, a former president of the National Institute of Governmental Purchasing who worked as the director of purchasing for the state of West Virginia and for Broward County for 20 years.

Bill Herrmann, a yacht delivery captain who operates at the marina, shared those same concerns in an email to city staff. “The net result is that this appears to allow the mayor to select anyone he wants,” he wrote.

“It’s a decision that’s reached in the sunshine,” he told the Times. “It goes through all these processes. If you have fair selection criteria, we’re going to get the best deal.”