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Visions of renaissance
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Published: February 11, 2012
TAMPA - One of the best views of Tampa's skyline is reserved for a fleet of public works trucks parked each day near Rome and Columbus avenues.
The city owns the 12-acre public works yard on the banks of the Hillsborough River. It's part of a 140-acre tract Mayor Bob Buckhorn hopes will transform over the coming years from a jumble of schools, public housing and other uses to a blend of high-value housing and shops.
Buckhorn and his staff embarked Friday on a yearlong effort to craft a new future for the wedge of land east of Rome and north of Interstate 275. They'll get guidance from the Urban Land Institute, a Washington-based think tank specializing in development.
ULI members visited Tampa this week to get the lay of the land. Their verdict: The property has lots of potential that's going to waste.
"No one would know from being there that this is waterfront," said Antonio Fiol-Silva, a planner and architect from Philadelphia. "This site is incredible. It's location on the river is incredible."
ULI members delivered their assessment at a gathering of business leaders, developers and civic boosters at the Tampa Convention Center. Among their recommendations:
•Take a lesson from Providence, R.I., and other cities that use their rivers to unite their populations and build civic pride. Today, the Hillsborough River seems to do the opposite, they said.
•Use farmers markets, concerts and art shows to bring outsiders into the neighborhood and build support for redevelopment. Those activities will highlight the area's best features, including the river, and dispel worries about crime that continue to plague the area.
•Take down the fence at Blake High School and give people access to the river, including boaters and students in nearby schools.
Redeveloping the river bend won't come cheap. Buckhorn said moving the public works yard alone could cost up to $10 million. Millions more will be needed to modernize utilities, provide transit and make other upgrades.
But the low value of the existing properties — the entire 140 acres generated less than $160,000 in property taxes — makes redevelopment promising, said West Tampa businessman Ed Turanchik, who has a long history of trying to reinvent chunks of Tampa.
"My heart is in this," Turanchik told the gathering. "A lot of my money has been lost in it."
ULI members recommended tapping federal agencies for some of the money needed to get the job done. A self-financing redevelopment zone is another possibility. But the bulk of the cost is likely to fall on private developers.
"You have all the ingredients for becoming a national model for how you rebuild urban neighborhoods across the country," said ULI member Cathy Crenshaw, who led this week's visit.
There's still the matter of relocating the residents of North Boulevard Homes, the 70-year-old public housing complex at the southern end of the project area. ULI members recommended a two-year window to vacate the complex to help redevelopment move forward.
The Tampa Housing Authority, which owns North Boulevard Homes, has signed on with the redevelopment effort and is discussing the complex's future with residents.
"We've got a lot of work ahead of us," said Jerome Ryans, the authority's chief executive officer.
Ryans said he will meet with housing officials and the authority's board in the coming weeks to craft a strategy for meeting the ULI deadline. Since 2000, the authority has relocated 4,000 families and rebuilt public housing complexes as mixed-income neighborhoods.
"It's doable," Ryans said of the North Boulevard effort, "as long as the feds are onboard."
This is not the first time city leaders have contemplated a new future for North Boulevard Homes and the neighboring land.
In 2008, the Tampa Housing Authority had plans drawn up for replacing the North Boulevard complex with a baseball stadium. Turanchik said Friday he had drafted redevelopment plans for the riverfront land in 2003. Three years before, Turanchik had proposed the land as an Olympic Village for the city's bid to host the 2012 summer Games.
Ultimately, those plans went nowhere.
Buckhorn vowed that wouldn't happen with the current effort.
"Twenty years from now, they will say about this moment, this year, that this is when we changed Tampa's history," Buckhorn told the gathering Friday. "We're not going to put these plans on a shelf."
kwiatrowski@tampatrib.com (813) 259-7871 Twitter: TBOKevinW
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