After years of working toward building a proper home for the Woodson African American Museum of Florida, Executive Director Terri Lipsey Scott faced a decision.
The museum had received a $1 million state grant to move out of its building — a former public housing community center — into a first-of-its-kind home built to showcase African American history.
Those plans were dashed when the Tampa Bay Rays withdrew an offer to build a replacement stadium for Tropicana Field and redevelop the land around it complete with a new Woodson museum. The grant was set to expire, Lipsey Scott said.
“We were running up against a time crunch with regards to using it or losing it,” said Lipsey Scott.
So the museum’s leaders opted to refurbish the existing home in time for the Woodson’s 20th anniversary. They replaced the heating and air conditioning system and made the building more suitable for community events.
At the reopening Saturday, Lipsey Scott and other community leaders made clear they’re still seeking a forever home. They also acknowledged a new Woodson faces a long climb.
Another developer has emerged, again promising to feature the Woodson in its plans. Ken Welch, the city’s first Black mayor and champion for a new Woodson, faces a tough reelection campaign.
If he survives, he must negotiate terms with suitor Blake Investment Partners. The redevelopment proposal still needs favorable votes from the City Council and museum backers must secure money for construction and operations.
“We’re so far from our anticipated goal of having the first purpose-built African American Museum,” Lipsey Scott said. “It’s critically important that we have a space where these stories are no longer hidden from public view.”
‘Not our destination’
Lipsey Scott walked to the podium outside the Woodson Museum on Saturday as she prepared to open its doors to the public once again. She was greeted with a standing ovation.
“This renovation is not our destination,” Lipsey Scott proclaimed. A ‘Yes, ma’am’ broke through the cheers.
Since its inception in 2006, the museum has been housed in the 4,000-square-foot former community center and management office of the Jordan Park housing complex.
The museum doesn’t have a permanent collection, usually switching out exhibits about every three months. Artifacts have to be stored in climate-controlled storage units.
The sheer lack of space is one of the biggest limitations for the museum. Lipsey Scott refers to it as a “room-seum.”
Whereas other museums in St. Petersburg have multiple gleaming galleries, the Woodson consists of only one, she said.
“The gallery is the gallery and the gallery is the museum,” Lipsey Scott said.
As part of the makeover, boarded-up windows where art once hung were refashioned into walls. Makeshift shelves got transformed into a full-fledged library in the corner of the one-room museum.
Manitia Moultrie, the museum’s lead curator, said the renovations are a community milestone. The museum has functioned as a cultural safe space and champion of justice for two decades, she added.
“The Woodson has weathered challenges, celebrated triumphs, and we continue to grow,“ she said. ”And as we reopen our doors, we do so with a renewed purpose and a deeper commitment to the work ahead.”
Welch said the museum has always been an “integral part of the vision” of the redevelopment of what he calls the Historic Gas Plant District. It refers to the collection of neighborhoods and business that once occupied the land around the Trop.
“The history needs to be remembered and what better way than to have the first dedicated African American Museum in Florida at that site,” said Welch, whose grandfather owned a woodyard in the Gas Plant District.
Woodson Museum is first building planned
Making sure the Woodson is the first building to go up “puts a stake in the ground for the whole development,” said Jason Jensen, the CEO of Wannemacher Jensen Architects, the lead district architect and park planner for the project Blake Investment Partners has called The Burg Bid.
“We believe it should be at the heart of the project, not on the periphery,” Jensen added.
Featuring the Woodson so prominently is important to the values of the project and the community, he said. The history of the Gas Plant District will be “sprinkled” throughout the complex, such as a welcome center outside the Woodson depicting the story of the site, Jensen said.
Community input will be another driver in the future of the project, Jensen said, even as the city enters negotiations with Blake Investment.
“Winning the competition, for example, is the beginning. It’s the foundation that says these are the ideas that are important to us,” Jensen said. “But the community evolves that vision to be a well-tailored design that fits particularly to St. Petersburg.”
The proposal reimagines the museum in the shape of a traditional headwrap, a nod to how African women have protected their hair for centuries. The building’s vertical, cylindrical shape references the gas plants that once stood in the community.
It would put the Woodson much closer to its peer museums across the city in scale and design, renderings indicate.
Blake Investment Partners, led by St. Petersburg native Thompson Whitney Blake, pledged a minimum $10 million investment to help build the museum. There is no estimated cost for construction yet.
The firm’s final contribution will not be complete until the city finishes negotiations, Welch said. The museum’s own fundraising will likely come into play as well.
“I know there are some folks who say, ‘Slow down, take a pause.’ It’s not time to pause,” Welch said. “It’s been 40 years of promises, and we are moving forward with a development team that has promised a minimum $10 million investment in that new museum.”
A museum years in the making
Lipsey Scott has been part of the movement to push the museum toward bigger and better things for years.
In 2019, then-mayor Rick Kriseman gave the Woodson $1 million and 5.5 acres of land to help build the museum’s home. Along with it came a task for Lipsey Scott: raising $27 million for the construction and operation of the museum.
So far, Lipsey Scott said she has raised $7.7 million. She paused fundraising in 2024 as the city recovered from back-to-back hurricanes and the deal with the Rays crumbled.
Lipsey Scott hasn’t resumed fundraising since then, saying she wants certainty from all the parties involved in the proposal so she can present a plan to investors.
“I’m not interested in selling anything I don’t have,” she said.
Another museum may beat them to being the first-ever purposely built African American history museum in the state, however. An effort backed by Gov. Ron DeSantis to build a Florida Museum of Black History is underway in St. Augustine.
The momentum from the Historic Gas Plant Redevelopment is still significant for Lipsey Scott. She said it “does [her] heart good” to know there will be an attractor for the community and that her community will see itself represented.
Public subsidies have funded projects to make the community whole, Lipsey Scott said, listing off examples like the Trop and the St. Petersburg Municipal Marina.
“At what time do we get to do that and have that opportunity?” she said.
