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St. Petersburg, Fla. (Feb. 28, 2024) – Whole Foods Market opened its new 40,100-square-foot store, located at 201 38th Ave North, St. Petersburg, Florida, on Feb. 28 at 9 a.m. EST.

The store’s aesthetic is inspired by the vibrant spirit of St. Petersburg, known as the ‘Sunshine City’ for its close ties to sundials. Customers are welcomed by a radiant sun motif, and the entire store is adorned with elements reminiscent of sunbeams and a warm, inviting color scheme. Embracing Whole Foods Market’s commitment to supporting local communities, the new store proudly offers more than 800 products from Florida, thoughtfully curated by Dustin Kennedy, Forager for Local and Emerging Brands.

“As a Tampa-area native, opening a Whole Foods Market store in St. Petersburg feels like a personal milestone. This moment has been eagerly awaited, and I’m honored to be part of the team bringing our store to such a vibrant community,” says Mario Torres, Store Team Leader for Whole Foods Market. “This store has so much to offer, including knowledgeable team members in every department who are passionate about good food and ready to meet our new customers!”

Features of the new St. Petersburg store include:

As part of its ongoing commitment to supporting local communities, Whole Foods Market is contributing a refrigerated van to Good Neighbors through its Nourishing Our Neighborhoods initiative. Introduced by the retailer in 2020, this program is dedicated to strengthening the operational capacities of local food rescue organizations, empowering them to effectively distribute surplus food to areas where it’s needed the most. Additionally, Whole Foods Market will extend its support to the St. Pete Free Clinic by making a charitable contribution to aid the nonprofit’s initiatives aimed at improving food accessibility throughout Pinellas County.

All food at Whole Foods Market must meet the company’s rigorous Quality Standards, which prohibit hydrogenated fats, high-fructose corn syrup and more than 300 flavors, colors, sweeteners and other ingredients commonly found in food. In addition, all beauty and body care products must meet the company’s body care standards, which ban more than 240 commonly used ingredients, including phthalates, parabens and microbeads.

Prime members who shop at Whole Foods Market have access to a number of benefits year-round, including deep discounts on select popular products each week and an additional 10% off hundreds of in-store sale items. Additionally, customers can pay in-store with their palm using Amazon One or with the Whole Foods Market or Amazon app. For more information on in-store benefits for Prime members and payment options, please visit https://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/amazon.

Whole Foods Market St. Petersburg will be open from 9 a.m. – 10 p.m. EST opening day. Regular store hours will be 8 a.m. – 10 p.m. EST daily. For more information and hours of operation, please visit: https://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/stores/stpetersburg.

About Whole Foods Market

Founded in 1980, Austin-based Whole Foods Market is the world’s leading natural and organic foods retailer and the first certified organic national grocer in the United States. Part of Amazon’s Worldwide Grocery Stores, Whole Foods Market serves customers in more than 530 stores across the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. To learn more about Whole Foods Market, please visit https://media.wholefoodsmarket.com/.

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FLORIDA — Excitement is building in Florida for Monday’s 2024 total solar eclipse, a celestial phenomenon that Americans won’t see again for two decades.

Only our yellow star’s spiky corona will be visible in the 15 states in the path of totality, which extends from Texas to Maine in the United States. We’ll see a less dramatic blockage of the sun in Florida with about 58 percent totality in Tampa and 46 percent in Miami as the moon slips between the sun and Earth, according to a searchable NASA map.

Below is your complete guide to viewing the sun’s disappearing act in Florida:

When You’ll See What

Here are the eclipse times to keep in mind on Monday (all times local):

Find out what's happening in Tampawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

What Will The Weather Be Like?

As of Friday, the National Weather Service forecast calls for mostly clear and sunny skies on Monday with a high of 87 degrees.

What’s Happening Around The Tampa Region?

Great Explorations Children’s Museum, St. PetersburgThe museum will organize a group viewing of the eclipse at Crescent Lake Park at 2:45 p.m. After the eclipse, attendees are encouraged to explore the museum’s planetarium, which offers free entry to members that day. Non-members will pay a standard fee.

Hillsborough County Public Library CooperativeVarious libraries in the Hillsborough County Public Library Cooperative will stream the eclipse on NASA TV starting at 1:35 p.m. These include:

The Arthenia L. Joyner Library will host a viewing party for children ages 6 to 12.The 78th Street Library will also stream the movie “Dune” from 3 to 6 p.m.

James Weldon Johnson Community Library, St. PetersburgThis eclipse viewing party includes crafts and activities, such as constructing a viewer and experiments with UV beads. A limited number of eclipse glasses will be available.

Museum of Science and Industry, Tampa

There will be hands-on activities starting at 2 p.m. in the Primary Colors Amphitheater. Each ticket includes a pair of solar eclipse glasses. Cost is $18.50 per adult and $14.50 per child.

North Greenwood Library, ClearwaterThe library will begin distributing eclipse-viewing glasses at 1:45 p.m.

Pier 60 Sugar Sand Festival, ClearwaterThe first 2,500 people at this viewing party on Clearwater Beach will receive collectible eclipse glasses.

Pinellas County Library CooperativeVarious libraries in the Pinellas County Library Cooperative are hosting eclipse viewing parties, including:

St. Petersburg College Planetarium at the Gibbs Campus in St. PetersburgThe SPC planetarium will host a free public viewing of the eclipse. Eclipse viewers and specially equipped telescopes will be available in the “quad” area of the St. Petersburg/Gibbs campus, near the Natural Science building, beginning at 1:30 p.m.

Be Sure To Protect Your Eyes

Except during the brief total phase of a total solar eclipse, when the sun’s face is completely obscured by the moon, it is not safe to look directly at the sun without protective eye equipment, according to NASA.

The American Astronomical Society has a list of vendors whose eclipse glasses have been certified as safe. The organization specifically warns against bargain hunting for eclipse glasses from online marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay or Temu because counterfeit glasses have infiltrated retail chains. Wherever you acquire protective eyewear, it should meet or exceed the international safety standard of ISO 12312-2:2015.

Keep this in mind, too: Viewing any part of the bright sun through a camera lens, binoculars, or a telescope without a special-purpose solar filter secured over the front of the optics will instantly cause severe eye injury.

One other safe way to view the eclipse is with a do-it-yourself pinhole projector that shows the sun on a nearby surface. The American Astronomical Society has pinhole projector DIY instructions.

A Bigger Deal Than 2017

The duration of totality in the United States will be up to 4 minutes and 24 seconds in Eagle Pass, Texas, beginning at 1:27 p.m. CDT. For comparison, the eclipse reaches totality about an hour later, at 3:29 p.m. EDT in Jackman, Maine, and lasts about 3 minutes and 26 seconds.

Totality will last twice as long as in the coast-to-coast solar eclipse in 2017, and the number of people in the path of totality — an estimated 32 million people — is much greater.

Besides Texas and Maine, states seeing totality include Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont and New Hampshire.

Eclipse Opens Scientific Window

Another thing that makes the 2024 solar eclipse markedly different from the 2017 event is that it’s occurring as the sun is at its peak activity cycle, called solar maximum. In 2017, the sun was approaching minimum. This year’s eclipse opens a unique window for scientists to study the sun’s corona.

“The eclipse that we have coming up in 2024 is going to be a very different eclipse from what we saw in 2017 because this corona that we see is going to have much more structure,” Lisa Upton, a solar scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, told Scientific American.

The violent solar storms occurring right now are responsible for auroras that dance far outside their Arctic and Antarctic ranges but also carry the potential to knock out internet satellites for months, take down power grids, and interfere with navigation satellites. Right now, these events happen with little warning, but scientists are working on their ability to predict space weather.

When Is The Next Eclipse?

It will be March 30, 2033, before another total solar eclipse touches the United States, and that’s only on the tip of Alaska. It’ll be Aug. 12, 2044, before the next eclipse sweeps across the lower 48 states, with parts of Montana and North Dakota experiencing totality.

Don’t Worry About This

Legends in ancient cultures attributed the temporary disappearance of the sun to celestial dragons and other mythical creatures, wolves and even giant frogs who either ate the sun or stole it. Among some cultures, the solar eclipse was a foreboding sign the gods were angry or that the siblings the sun and the moon were quarreling, according to timeanddate.com. In many cultures, “eclipse” means to eat.

Among the Pomo, an indigenous group of people who lived in the Northwest United States, the literal translation of “eclipse” is “got bit by a bear.” The legend is that a bear mixed it up with the sun and took a bite out of it and then decided to have a slice of the moon as well, causing a lunar eclipse.

Scientists and astronomers long ago solved the riddle of the solar eclipse — it’s simply what happens when the moon masks the sun as it passes in front of it. Still, some superstitions remain in modern culture, including that solar eclipses are dangerous for pregnant women and their unborn children, or that food cooked during an eclipse is poisonous.

In Italy, though, the superstitions aren’t as gloomy as the sky when the moon blots out the sun. Instead, the eclipse is prime flower planting time; it’s believed they will bloom brighter and more colorful than flowers planted at other times of the year. Other claims about negative effects on human behavior have been debunked by scientists.

St. Petersburg, Fla. (Jan. 31, 2024) – Whole Foods Market will open a new 40,100 square-foot store, located at 201 38th Ave North, St. Petersburg, Florida, on Feb. 28 at 9.a.m. EST.

The store’s design draws inspiration from St. Petersburg, nicknamed the ‘Sunshine City’ for its association with sundials. A prominent glowing sun greets customers while decor elements throughout the store incorporate sun rays and a palette of warm colors. The new store’s product assortment features more than 800 locally sourced products from the Southeast, curated with the help of Dustin Kennedy, Local Forager for Whole Foods Market.

Features of the new St. Petersburg store include:

Whole Foods Market St. Petersburg will be open from 9 a.m. – 10 p.m. opening day. Regular store hours will be 8 a.m. – 10 p.m. EST daily. Opening morning, customers will enjoy complimentary coffee and breakfast bites. The first 300 customers in line will receive a limited-edition tote bag and a Secret Saver coupon featuring offers up to $100 off.

To give back to the community, Whole Foods Market is donating a refrigerated van to Good Neighbors through its Nourishing Our Neighborhoods program. Launched by the grocer in 2020, the Nourishing Our Neighborhoods program aims to enhance the operational capabilities of local food rescue organizations, enabling them to efficiently transport food from surplus locations to areas with the greatest need. Whole Foods Market will also make a donation to St. Pete Free Clinic to support the nonprofit’s programs that increase food access in Pinellas County.

All food at Whole Foods Market must meet the company’s rigorous Quality Standards, which prohibit hydrogenated fats, high-fructose corn syrup and more than 300 flavors, colors, sweeteners and other ingredients commonly found in food. In addition, all beauty and body care products must meet the company’s body care standards, which ban more than 240 commonly used ingredients, including phthalates, parabens and microbeads.

Amazon Prime members who shop at Whole Foods Market have access to a number of benefits year-round, including deep discounts on select popular products each week and an additional 10% off hundreds of in-store sale items. For more information and hours of operation, please visit: https://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/stores/stpetersburg

About Whole Foods Market

For more than 40 years, Whole Foods Market has been the world’s leading natural and organic foods retailer. As the first certified organic national grocer, Whole Foods Market has more than 500 stores in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. To learn more about Whole Foods Market, please visit https://media.wholefoodsmarket.com/.

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The city’s agreement with Duke will soon be up for renewal for the first time in 30 years.

|Updated Feb. 15

Two members of the St. Petersburg City Council on Thursday raised the idea of breaking off from Duke Energy to form a municipal utility, a potential major shift that would alter who is in charge of the city’s electricity.

During a morning meeting of the health, energy, resilience and sustainability committee, which includes four of the eight city council members, council member Brandi Gabbard floated the idea first. She pointed to the fact that the city’s legal agreement with Duke Energy is up for renewal in 2026, saying she wanted to take advantage of the “rare opportunity.” It’s been 30 years since the last time the city renewed that contract.

“I’ve been having some conversations behind the scenes with some concerned residents and stakeholders that do not want us to just rubber-stamp a new agreement. They want council involved in this conversation, they want us to start now and they honestly want us to look at alternatives to actually running our own municipal (utility),” she said. “I’m not saying today that I’m in favor of that. What I’m saying is I believe we need to have a conversation about it.”

Fellow council member Richie Floyd said he has similar interest in learning more about what that would entail. If St. Petersburg formed its own utility, it would join a list of other cities including Lakeland, Orlando, Jacksonville and Tallahassee that have greater control over how their communities are powered.

Floyd pointed to the city’s goal to have 100% of St. Petersburg’s energy come from renewable sources by 2035, saying he wants to see more data showing whether Duke Energy is moving aggressively enough toward that benchmark. He said the city could also choose to stay with Duke but renegotiate some parts of its contract.

“My primary concern is not with Duke or anything, my primary concern is ... making sure we’re actually meeting our emissions reduction and renewable goals. Because look at how vulnerable we are — and we’re contributing to climate change? That’s unacceptable,” Floyd said after the meeting. “No. 2, making sure that we’re providing the best service (that’s) affordable to our residents. Prices have gone up so much, I think affordability is going to have to be a key aspect of this.”

Floyd said council members and staff will continue to gather more details about all the city’s options and the discussion will continue in future meetings. The committee is expected to meet again in March and July.

Audrey Stasko, a spokesperson for Duke Energy, said in a statement the company’s history in Florida is “nearly as old as the city of St. Petersburg itself.”

Stasko pointed to a community solar program and converting street lights to LED bulbs as examples of Duke supporting the city’s ambitions.

“We look forward to continuing to work with the city to help meet its clean energy goals,” she said.

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ST. PETERBURG, Fla. — If you’ve driven on 4th Street lately, you’ve likely been through all of the construction.

What You Need To Know

The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) is changing the medians between 30th Avenue North to 94th Avenue North to help with safety and traffic flow.

But some drivers have questions about those changes.

Shannon Negro has driven on 4th Street for years, always making the same turn to get to and from her home.

Until one day, that turn was gone.

“We used to be able to come out to 4th Street and take a left,” Negro said. “Now it appears it’s all filled in with concrete.”

Up and down 4th Street, there are new concrete medians being installed.

Some of the new medians are now blocking turns that were previously available. Other medians don’t appear to be finished yet, which Negro says doesn’t leave enough room to turn left since they have incomplete gaps between the lanes and barriers.

“It’s frustrating when you have to slow down so much to get into the position you want,” Negro said. “To get in between these concrete barriers. And I’ve had people beep that I’m going too slow to get into the left turn lane.”

FDOT officials say the major purpose of the project is to improve safety. They say from 2014 to 2018, there were 1,501 crashes with nine deaths on 4th Street from 30th Avenue North to 94th Avenue North.

Reducing the number of median openings can reduce the number of crashes.

FDOT also says the current conditions of the medians will be improved with paving. When done, the gaps will be smoothed out.

While FDOT did announce the project ahead of time, Negro says many of her neighbors weren’t aware of the changes. But she hopes once the work is done, it will make it easier to navigate 4th Street.

“I’m hoping they can at least get the repairs done for what they dug up,” Negro said. “That’s the biggest thing. And then I think it’s going to be a lot easier to make your left turns.”

The road work is expected to be done in the summer of 2024.