Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

Tonight the Tampa Downtown Partnership held their 2nd annual update for their “Vision & Action Plan.” It attracted a crowd of 30-35 people. Here are some of the highlights, in the various focus areas:

Culture & the Arts

• One of the audience members was adamant about keeping the existing Tampa Museum of Art building. He apparently doesn’t want to live in a City that will tear down a 27-year old “perfectly good” building. Nevermind that it leaks or that the City is almost 99% set on tearing down the building to provide a better view of the City (as well as serve as part of the Riverwalk).
• However, a better suggestion was that the Partnership and City work to bring more festivals downtown.

Education

• School Board member Candy Olson was in attendance and talked about the School Boards nascent efforts to convert the old Federal Courthouse building into a new high school. It would serve the downtown residence and employees - who could bring their children to school downtown. The school will be tied closely to the business community, offering internships for students between their junior and senior years. The school would also offer extensive foreign language education, including Spanish, Chinese, and ESOL.

Environment/Open Spaces

• There is a continued desire to ensure the open spaces help draw people.
• One person asked about the development of bike paths. There is a new bike lanes on Jackson Street, but the plan includes non-street bike paths.
• One resident commented about the (illegal?) feeding of the homeless in downtown areas when there are homeless services north of downtown. He suggested that the city work with these “out of town” organizations to provide a designated place near the Salvation Army shelter on North Florida to distribute food. (The biggest problem, he said, was the littering that occurs when these organizations bring food to area parks to serve the homeless.) However, most people seemed to agree that there is a need to provide more service to the homeless in Tampa.
• On the Riverwalk, one resident specifically wanted to ensure it includes water access (it will). Another mentioned the potential water pollution issues with the Hillsborough River. A third wanted to make sure there would be plenty of shade - but with the problems with transplanting larger trees, it might be possible to use shard structures rather than trees.
• There were also suggestions for a community garden and a dog park, as well as discussion about Herman Massey park.

Hospitality

• One person requested the inclusion of new hotel space in the current study of the future expansion of the Tampa Convention Center.

Housing/Residential

• The first request, and there was a lot of discussion on this subject: affordable housing. Virtually all of the current residential projects include some aspect of mixed-income housing. The Tampa Heights and Central Park projects on the periphery of downtown include a significant amount of affordable housing.
• I also learned recent market conditions, as well as the covenants most developers are using, are providing a greater and greater ratio of residents to investors in the newer properties. This will provide more residents living in downtown and Channelside.
• No one mentioned the Donald pulling out.
• The Tampa Tribune is reporting in “Downtown Condos Put on Hold” that the redevelopment of the old Maas Brothers building is on hold indefinitely.  The same developer has also  decided to turn their Downtown West project, The Boulevard, from condos to rental units.  They may do the same with the Maas site, or just wait until the market turns around.

Office/Commercial Real Estate

• There wasn’t much discussion of the commercial properties in downtown.

Planning/Zoning

• One of the major topics was parking. One of the biggest issues is the requirement from the City of one parking space per 1,000 square feet. This means new buildings have to include a parking garage (expensive) or find other arrangements within 250 feet. There is an effort to extend the radius to 1,000 feet which would be a five-minute walk. One person suggested developers who pay the “in lieu” fee to use other parking include a component to pay for the operation of a circulator in some areas.

Retail/Entertainment

• This is one area that gets a lot of attention. The first issue that was explored was part of the original 2005 Vision and Action Plan. It was suggested that the Partnership lease 10 properties in a master lease, then subsidize subleases for the properties so retail, dining, and entertainment businesses could move in. The plan required a $5 million investment, for some capital costs such as ADA modifications, but the remaining funds would offset the subsidy for the subleases.
• The Partnership is building a “Space Bank” that includes talking with most of the property owners as well as reviewing the available space. Many of the owners don’t want to start leasing their property in the hopes they can sell to a developer.
• Another asked for more grocery stores. Michael Chen with the City of Tampa said that several grocery stores have looked at space in the area, but will not be building this year. Of the new projects in the Channelside area, it would be possible to have a small 20,000 - 25,000 square foot store in the future.

Transportation

• One suggestion was to expand the Intown Trolley to include Davis Islands.
• Another was to make a greater effort to use Peter O Knight Airport as an Executive Airport.

Conclusion

Now, all of these efforts are being coordinated by the Tampa Downtown Partnership, which is funded by property tax dollars. Now we all know that there will be a Special Session to reform property taxes. Michael Chen with the City of Tampa noted that the City was planning fund $40 million of downtown improvements with bonds backed by property taxes. He indicated that the changes proposed in Tallahassee could eliminate some - or all - of the ability to borrow this money.

One participant noted that local governments have done a bad job - I’d say a piss-poor job - of tying property taxes to government services. So when people hear their property taxes will go down, they don’t realize it means some service they want could be cut or eliminated.

Moreover, it’s possible the Legislators either don’t understand - or even don’t care about this problem. Because they include provisions for the City Council to vote to go over some proposed tax cuts, Legislators can say they cut property taxes while local elected officials are forced to raise them back to cover the services demanded by their shared constituents.

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