11/17/2025
A Personal Message to Our Neighbors From John & Julie Barkett
Before anything else, we want to speak directly from the heart.
We may not live on the South Side, but we have spent years working on MLK — operating businesses, supporting entrepreneurs, walking this corridor, and investing our time and energy into St. Pete’s growth. We know the history of this city well enough to understand that South St. Pete has carried far more weight — and received far less investment — than it ever deserved.
We stepped into this project not as people looking at a map, but as people who have watched MLK from end to end for years. We’ve seen the energy on the north side, and we’ve seen the neglect on the south side. And we believe with everything in us that MLK South deserves the same chance to thrive.
That is why we started the Looking Glass Initiative:
to create community-centered investment in an area that has carried too much, for too long.
What follows is a fuller explanation of why this work matters — and why we are committed to doing it the right way: with partnership, respect, and transparency.
The Future of MLK Jr Street South: A Community Message About History, Healing & the Looking Glass Initiative
If you want to understand why the future of the 900–1000 blocks of MLK Jr Street South matters so deeply, you have to understand what this corridor has survived.
MLK South didn’t “fall apart.”
It didn’t decline because people didn’t care.
It didn’t stay vacant because the community failed.
This street was set up to decline — and then blamed for the decline.
And now that real investment is finally on the table, people understandably want to know:
Will this help us, or will it push us out?
The Looking Glass Initiative is our answer to that question — and here’s why it matters.
A Corridor Built by a Community With No Other Place to Go
For most of the 20th century, Black families were pushed south of Central Avenue. Through redlining, racial covenants, and discriminatory lending, South St. Pete became the heart of Black life in the city.
People built homes, churches, businesses, and culture with their own hands.
The Deuces thrived.
MLK Jr Street South (then 9th Street) became the everyday backbone of the community.
This was a corridor anchored by survival, creativity, and resilience.
The Twin Forces That Broke What Was Built
Two major historical waves hit at the same time:
1. Desegregation
It brought long overdue rights — but unintentionally drained customers from Black-owned businesses that had been shut out of capital for decades.
2. Urban renewal
Highways and demolition projects tore through Black neighborhoods, displaced families, and erased business districts.
MLK South was left underfunded, overpoliced, and boxed out of opportunity — while nearby areas like Roser Park received historic protections, beautification, and city investment that never reached the Black side of the corridor.
These different outcomes weren’t created by today’s residents.
They were created by decades of unequal policy.
What MLK South Has Looked Like in Recent Years
For decades, almost nothing happened on this stretch of the corridor.
Buildings sat vacant.
Drug activity moved in.
Landlords neglected properties.
The community waited, hoped, and held on.
So when something finally started happening, everyone noticed.
But some people — especially those living in areas that have historically been protected and well-resourced — expected the kind of gentrification they’ve seen in other cities:
• upscale renovation
• high-end tenants
• rising rents
• a shift toward downtown aesthetics
• displacement dressed up as “revitalization”
But that’s not what’s happening here.
🌿 A Gentle Word to Our Nearby Neighbors
We also want to acknowledge something simply because it’s human nature:
when a corridor that’s been silent for years suddenly wakes up, people notice — and not everyone expected the kind of change that’s happening on MLK South.
Some may have assumed this area would go the familiar route of high-end redevelopment and rapid turnover. Instead, what’s happening is community-centered, equity-driven, and intentionally designed to uplift people who have historically been left out.
So if any part of this process has felt unexpected, we get it. Change is surprising even when it’s good.
But here’s the heart of it:
We can’t — and won’t — step away from doing what’s right for a community that has carried generations of inequity.
And we also believe fully that:
We can do that while moving forward with kindness, transparency, and a genuine commitment to coexist as good neighbors.
There’s room here for everyone to feel included, informed, and respected — even as we prioritize long-overdue investment in a corridor that has been overlooked for far too long.
What the Looking Glass Initiative Is Actually Doing
This initiative is designed with a clear mission:
To revitalize MLK South with the community, for the community — not at the community’s expense.
It focuses on:
• affordable commercial space
• recruiting and growing Black-owned businesses
• bringing food access to a known food desert
• adding health and essential services
• creating safe, vibrant gathering spaces
• hiring from the neighborhood
• preserving culture
• repairing generational harm
This is not a “wipe the slate clean and start over” project.
This is restoration.
What About Outside Investors? Is That Gentrification?
This is a common question.
Here’s the truth:
Outside investors — white or otherwise — are not the problem.
Displacement is the problem.
When investors commit to:
• affordable rents
• prioritizing Black tenants
• supporting local entrepreneurs
• sharing power, not extracting it
• hiring locally
• building with community input
• honoring the history of South St. Pete
…that is not gentrification.
That is repair.
That is responsible reinvestment.
Cities like Baltimore, Birmingham, and Atlanta show that when redevelopment centers local ownership and culture, neighborhoods stabilize, crime decreases, businesses grow, and residents remain rooted.
That’s the path being taken here.
What This Moment Means for MLK South
This corridor has carried:
• redlining
• urban renewal
• highway construction
• overpolicing
• decades of disinvestment
• and the stigma that comes from all of it
And yet, the community stayed.
Held on.
Adapted.
Survived.
Now, for the first time in a generation, the opportunity exists to build something that honors that perseverance instead of replacing it.
The Looking Glass Initiative is not about changing the community.
It’s about strengthening it.
It’s about repairing what policy broke.
It’s about making room for the people who made MLK South what it is — and ensuring they benefit from what comes next.
This is how we rise.
Together.
Rooted.
Seen.
Included.
And finally valued in the way this community always should have been.
A Closing Note From John & Julie
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
This project isn’t abstract to us.
It is something we carry with real responsibility.
We know the history of this corridor — not just as developers, but as business owners who have watched the difference in how the city invests in North MLK versus South MLK. We know how long South St. Pete has waited for real, meaningful investment that doesn’t come at the cost of displacement or cultural erasure.
We’re not here to repeat patterns that harmed this community.
We’re here to break them.
We believe:
• Black-owned businesses should have priority access to opportunity
• long-time residents should benefit from rising investment, not be pushed out by it
• the culture and history of South St. Pete must be protected
• and revitalization should feel like repair, not replacement
We come into this work humbly — knowing we will need to earn trust, listen deeply, and be transparent every step of the way. Accountability matters to us. Community partnership matters to us. And honoring the people who have held this corridor together matters to us.
Thank you for caring enough to ask questions.
Thank you for pushing us to do this the right way.
Thank you for your patience as we build something worthy of MLK South’s history.
We are honored to work alongside you — and to help create a future where this corridor finally receives the investment, dignity, and opportunity it has always deserved.
With respect,
John & Julie Barkett
