With just days left before developers must submit bids for nearly 25 acres of prime, taxpayer-owned land in downtown Clearwater, Pinellas County officials admit they still don’t have a single formal proposal in hand — and residents are being told to simply wait and see.

The county’s 90-day bidding window for the redevelopment of 17 government-owned properties closes at 3 p.m. Friday. As of last week, County Administrator Barry Burton told commissioners that while the county’s request has generated plenty of online interest, no developer had actually submitted a proposal.

“There’s been a lot of downloads, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into proposals,” Burton told commissioners at a September 10 budget meeting, after Commissioner Chris Latvala pressed him on the lack of movement. Burton predicted developers would run out the clock. “They’ll wait to the last minute,” he said. “They’ll absolutely wait to the last second.”

At stake is one of the largest government land deals in recent Pinellas County history — 17 parcels spanning nearly 25 acres, including the county’s main courthouse, the historic courthouse on the National Register of Historic Places, and government buildings lining both sides of Court Street. The county plans to abandon these properties altogether once a new government complex is built off Ulmerton Road near U.S. 19, a project already tied to millions in taxpayer-backed debt. Officials say they are currently setting aside roughly $4.1 million for a future bond payment tied to that new campus — a bill county taxpayers will be covering regardless of how the Clearwater land deal turns out.

Yet even as public money is committed to build the county’s new home, officials have been unwilling to say how they intend to structure the sale of the old one. County leadership has left open the possibility of an outright sale or a 99-year lease of public land to a private developer, with no indication of which option better protects taxpayers or produces the most value for the public. A Pinellas County spokesperson confirmed the county will not disclose how many proposals it receives, or who submits them, until after Friday’s deadline — leaving residents with no visibility into a process that will reshape a large swath of their downtown for generations.

That opacity has not gone unnoticed by residents already skeptical of how far county government is willing to go with 25 acres of public land. Some have voiced concern that a long-term lease, rather than an outright sale, could hand effective control of the property to outside interests without adequate accountability to the people who actually own it — the taxpayers. One Clearwater resident, identified in county meeting records only as Mastruserio, urged commissioners to proceed cautiously regardless of financial pressure. “I would still like to see it be leased,” the resident said, while acknowledging the county’s need to fund its new complex. “I’m sure there’s other ways of financing.”

County officials say they expect to begin reviewing proposals in October, followed by term-sheet negotiations through roughly January with whichever bidders meet the county’s qualifications. A public town hall is tentatively planned for next spring — but only after the county has already begun negotiating behind closed doors with developers chosen through a process the public won’t be allowed to see until it’s over.

For a deal this size, involving public land, public buildings, and millions in public debt, residents may reasonably ask why so much of the process is happening without them.

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