dumbed down downtown
JohnOne day after Mayor Pam called the Devil Rays “Tampa’s team,” the St. Petersburg Times takes a shot at downtown Tampa and says St. Pete is much better.
The story cites office space and how full St. Petersburg’s downtown office space is compared to Tampa… Words and phrases like “wallowing” and “white-knuckle commutes” are thrown out to describe Tampa while St. Petersburg is simply described as bliss. The Times points out the 95 percent occupancy rate of St. Petersburg’s downtown office market compared to the 81 percent occupancy rate of Tampa’s…
What they don’t tell you is that translates to 5,180,000 square feet occupied in Tampa – which is double the total spaced offered in downtown St. Petersburg.
It’s a non-story really. The Times does what it can to prop up St. Petersburg just a little more and acknowledges Downtown Tampa is in the beginnings of a residential boom. Instead of a front-page feature story however, this article should have been relinquished to the back page of the business section.
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January 20th, 2006 at 1:44 pm
Great post. Thanks for pointing those facts out.
January 20th, 2006 at 3:48 pm
I think the graphics on the St. Pete Partnership Downtown Partnership’s website looks better, but as far as these cites are concerned…I think Tampa in the end with proper leadership in urban planning will totally ‘own’ St. Pete in almost everyway:)
January 20th, 2006 at 5:39 pm
Hmm, let’s see:
TPA: Jobs
BURG: Arts
TPA: Nightclubs
BURG: Water
TPA: Malls
BURG: Street fairs
TPA: Coked-up, self-absorbed ad sales execs with bad hair products
BURG: Dramatic, self-absorbed hipsters with bad haircuts
TPA: Office space people either use or don’t
BURG: Office space people either use or don’t
I think it’s time we all just admitted One Bay, One Love.
January 20th, 2006 at 5:42 pm
I’m not one to editorialize, least of all in the Tampa Bay Business Journal where I earn my keep, but I am compelled to make three quick points here:
1. The Times’ story on office occupancy would have been better served on the business page, but maybe Thursday was a slow news day and the editors couldn’t resist a front-pager about how much better St. Pete is than Tampa at something, anything. It seems kid-sisterish to me. Besides, if you read TBBJ on a regular basis you already know plenty about office vacancy in both cities!
2. Yankee Rose (good one, Big Dog!) and her fellow Tampa councilmates have far, far more important priorities to address. Fix the potholes first, then we’ll give props to the Stripes.
3. Can we please, please, please stop the sniping between Tampa and St. Petersburg! I moved here 10 years ago from another community where sibling rivalry was an art form, and just when I thought I’d gotten away from such trivialities I come to find out it’s done here on a larger scale! Other big metro areas laugh at us. Go ask Atlanta, Nashville and Charlotte. I’m willing to bet corporations with relocation plans don’t take Tampa Bay very seriously, either.
January 20th, 2006 at 6:01 pm
Rach and Carl… You got it. I am tired of this Hattsfields vs. McCoys shit. We’re all in this together…. If it’s not one thing, it’s another with St. Pete Vs. Tampa or Tampa vs. St. Pete.
January 20th, 2006 at 6:13 pm
Florida’s best newspaper, remember.
January 20th, 2006 at 6:57 pm
Would anyone REALLY rather live in downtown Tampa than downtown St Pete? Downtown St. Pete is an oasis in the desert of Tampa Bay’s mindless, ugly sprawl.
January 20th, 2006 at 7:09 pm
Downtown vs. Downtown hmmm. Right now I’d have to give St. Pete the edge, if only for a perhaps false sense of relative security as a pedestrian. However, as a new resident in the booming Port Tampa City area (think SOG, not Port of Tampa and Channelside) I’d have to give living in either town high marks over the burbs. Don’t get the rivalry at all, seems like a bit of an inferiority complex. Are they really saying let’s denigrate the neighbor so we won’t be compared to other more livable metro areas, like ones with real mass transit?
January 20th, 2006 at 7:09 pm
Here we go with the pissing match again *rolling my eyes*
January 21st, 2006 at 12:17 am
I live less than a mile from downtown Bradenton, which is far nicer and more laid-back than either Tampon or Leningrad.
We may not have many nightclubs, but with big screen TVs and cable, who needs to go out?
And jobs? We’re all old and retired around here. We don’t need jobs. They’re for Democrats, not for us.
Excuse me. It’s time for my nap.
January 21st, 2006 at 11:02 am
Wow, Robin, you’ve really created a new group here:
Childish self-copngratulatory Eliteist Anti-social Republican Shut-ins… Gotta remember that focus group in the next elections…
January 21st, 2006 at 1:54 pm
Y’all better watch out…Lakeland’s catching up.
January 21st, 2006 at 5:08 pm
Don’t you mean “Lameland” hee hee, I couldn’t resist.
January 22nd, 2006 at 11:03 am
Real America: Brandon and Lakeland
Commies: Leningrad (St. Pete)
January 23rd, 2006 at 12:04 pm
Too bad the Times spent millions to sponsor a building and a university… in Tampa.
Too bad their city doesn’t love them back a little more. They’re losing circulation in alarming amounts in their core readership area of… St. Petersburg.
January 27th, 2006 at 2:44 pm
[...] Never to be outdone by their arch-enemy, the Tribune writes a non-story of their own. Less than a week after the St. Pete Times ran a non-story on the front page, the Trib gives us this uninteresting, unimportant gem on the front of Metro: Bucs Games Well-Attended By The TSA. [...]
February 1st, 2006 at 4:53 pm
It’s all about location and St. Petersburg has by far the better location.