A city-owned building at 450 8th Avenue Southeast in St. Pete will soon become a hub for marine science, defense, and technology companies once a lease proposal is approved by City Council. The St. Petersburg Innovation District has proposed to lease the 30,000 square foot building which was recently vacated by SRI.
Under the proposal, the building would become home to a new project called the St. Petersburg Maritime and Defense Technology Hub (Hub) and will house SPID’s main office. Space in the building would be sub-leased to companies in the city’s Grow Smarter target industries. The building sits in the Innovation District which is anchored by USF St. Petersburg, Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, and Bayfront Health St. Petersburg.
The Hub is expected to bring together industry, government, and academia to provide a collaborative environment for its subtenants. The hope is that, while SRI struggled because of their isolation, the Hub will create an environment for tenants to pursue joint funding opportunities and facilitate other collaboration.
“The Innovation District's mission is to develop St. Petersburg into an environment that fosters job growth, economic development, and learning and inspiration by bringing innovative people and organizations together,” says Alison Barlow, Executive Director of the St. Petersburg Innovation District. “The Maritime and Defense Technology Hub will be a key addition to this mission through the work of the curated organizations that will come together in the building and their collective reach into the community.
For more about the Hub out St. Pete Rising.com (click here) , St Pete Catalyst (click here), or the Tampa Bay Business Journal (click here).
Join us on our next tour of the Innovation District! Our tour will begin at the HUB, and we will board a trolley with other Innovation District partners. As we travel throughout the District, you will learn about the fascinating history and exciting future plans for the area. We will make several stops for a unique insider view of the research and collaborations underway. Participants are invited to enjoy a networking happy hour back at the HUB, where our tour will conclude.
A group of support organizations, led by the Innovation District and fueled by a grant from Duke Energy, developed our first Tampa Bay Innovation Ecosystem Map in 2023. We aim to continue guiding entrepreneurs to the best possible resources with an updated version.
The graduation of the CodeBoxx AI Literacy and Applications Bootcamp was held on Saturday, August 9th at the ARK Innovation Center. The celebration included a tour of the ARK building, a sneak peek at the Vu Studio, and a hackathon. This bootcamp is designed to give participants a competitive edge in the job market by teaching practical ways to use AI. AI literacy and tech communication are more important than ever, and we're incredibly proud of this graduating class for taking that step forward.