fountain blah
permalink | categories: city, development, government, quality of life, tampa, tax waste, yborby clark_brooks @ 9:38 am
There’s a fountain being built in Ybor City as part of a major beautification project. It’s being built by the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) and when completed, will become the responsibility of the City of Tampa. This fountain is huge (nearly 29,000 square feet) and the total construction is going to cost about $1.3 million once it’s done. The upkeep is expected to cost between $3,000 and $5,000 a month.
Now, as long as hospitals success rates aren’t 1000% and crime rates aren’t 0%, there are going to be plenty of valid arguments against spending millions of dollars on things like fountains. But we all know they’re still going to get built and now we’re stuck with this one so there’s no point in bringing any of those arguments up now. Don’t get me wrong; as far as fountains go, this is truly a beautiful fountain. It’s as nice as any you’re likely to come across.
The problem is you’re not likely to come across this one.
It’s located between 21st and 22nd avenues underneath the I-4 overpass, right across the street from a McDonalds, which is what FDOT spokesman John McShaffrey refers to as a “gateway” to Ybor City. If you don’t associate that particular vista with screaming “scenic view!”, but more like just regular screaming, well, you’re probably not alone. I’m pretty sure that’s not one of the gateways to Ybor that Paul Catoe and Norwood Smith of the Tampa Bay Convention and Visitors Bureau tout to out of towners.
It doesn’t help that the entire thing is surrounded by a eight-foot high iron fence with locked gates. That’s right, you can’t (legally) get near it. It seems there are concerns about people misusing the fountain for purposes other than which it is intended, such as a bathing or, um, restroom facility. Now, I’m not making judgements about the people who live in or frequent Ybor City, I’m just following the path being laid here to it’s logical conclusion. That being if that’s really a concern, then maybe a fountain was never the best thing to put there in the first place. I mean isn’t that kind of like getting your kids a puppy but you know they’re too irresponsible to care for a pet so you take it to the taxidermist before you give it to them?
At any rate, the best place to actually view this magnificent fountain is from up on top of the I-4 overpass itself. Simply look for the McDonald’s sign, then pull over and stop (illegally) in the inside breakdown lane, get out and lean over the retaining wall and look down. Voila! Gateway fountaintastic!
Of course, all this grousing about the fountain is pointless anyway, since the the city has already said that because of water restrictions and budget concerns, they’re probably just going to shut the whole thing off once they take control of it. “I don’t know of any reason why it should be running,” said Elias Franco, spokesman for Tampa ’s Water Department.
Oh. Never mind.
(Cross posted at Ridiculously inconsistent trickle of consciousness)
Tags: city, development, government, quality of life, tampa, tax waste, ybor
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August 10th, 2007 at 9:50 am
This is one of the ultimate questions of “If I ever had a brain.”
The amount of money spent on the high fence alone has to be incredible. Maybe it is a plan to get the late night crowd to move away from 7th to the Fountains ?
August 10th, 2007 at 11:24 am
Most water fountains have the same water coming out as going in-plus the rain water which may even make it overflow. My question is can not transportation find a better way to spend their money on improving transportation instead of finding a way to ‘beautify’ Ybor-is not that up to individual cities or communities.
August 10th, 2007 at 11:30 am
I’ve driven past this thing dozens of times in recent days and I’ve not actually been able to get a good look at it thanks to the speed of traffic on 21st and 22nd streets. It is not as if you can see it once you exit off I-4, either, thanks to the layout of the intersection.
Very sad placement of something that could have been beautiful.
August 10th, 2007 at 11:57 am
I live right there at the Quarter. What an extreme waste!! It’s extremely hard to see any of it from the road and any pedestrian traffic is pretty much the homeless. I’ve often thought, though, how awesome would it be to put a few bottles of liquid soap in that sucker? imagine the bubbles…
August 10th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
boy that taxidermy idea is funny. you have a lovely-bordering-on-crazy mind. I love that in a man.
August 10th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
Vince, Tampa HATES beautiful. Look around. These ‘new people’ have waited all this time to take over this poor city, design it to their tastes and they ended up with the tail-end of a cheap zorro set. Which is EXACTLY what it looks like now in most of South Tampa (sorry folks, it’s true) Bayshore Blvd has been beaten ALMOST TO DEATH with an ugly stick and all the amount of new pavement in the world will not change that.
From an eleven year old: These buildings — every one of them is uglier than the one they built last time.
Yep.
August 11th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
Can’t anyone reel in the FDOT? They spend millions of dollars widening roads
building new ones, and constructing follies like the fountain, and all of it just makes things worse. New roads and widenings merely create more capacity which means more roads and more people driving on them, which mean more roads and widenings. How about considering alternate forms of transportation other than the internal combustion engine–a technology perfected in 1909?
Regarding Tampa Bay aesthetics, the only thing we know here is “Disney artificial”, industrial port grimy, and nouveau riche McMansion. Folks have been saying our area has alot of potential, and that it has good bones, etc. for 50 years. Why can’t our area atract the talent to design and plan on these good bones with grace and ease? Local design professionals and organizations (like the AIA) appear more interested in turning a profit than improving our built environment, and thus quality of life. A balance is what is needed.
Citizens need to simply demand better.
August 11th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
Why am I not surprised by all this. Why not build this fountain somewhere people would actually be able to appreciate it, Like downtown or Channelside. However, I do think it would be funny to see a bunch of homeless people taking a communal bath :p
August 14th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
We had a fountain in Ybor’s Centennial Park back in the 80’s and it was used by the homeless for bathing and a gathering spot in the evenings. It was later filled in so that it could be used for more art and craft shows. Seems as tho everyone thinks that Ybor needs a fountain. So now that we have one, forced on us, we can use water from our water treatment plant to keep it filled and working. One tanker truck [8000 gal] will do it. Considering that everyday probably several hundred are dumped in the bay, why not use it at the fountain.