Behind the facade of the cultural arts district

THOMPSON E-mail: Click here

© St. Petersburg Times
published March 2, 2002

It has been almost a year and a half since that first heady meeting in the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center when we brainstormed about the cultural arts district downtown. It was a big, buzzing crowd, and while a lot of people were there with their hands out, a lot of people were there because they love downtowns and they love cities, and they want Tampa to be more lovable. Or, at least more likable.

What they wanted most, it turned out, was people downtown, and to bring in an inclusive mix, they asked for everything from restaurants and cafes and a bakery to book stalls and mimes and T-shirt shops. They foresaw a trio from Blake High playing on the street, art students from USF doing I'm not sure what. They wanted a place like a real city, where all kinds of people come together to create a intoxicating synergy.

When Phil Enquist from Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, the urban design firm hired to draw up this project, was asked, "What's the first step?" he said, "Find people for the great vacant buildings." He saw art studios, film centers, housing for art students in those architecturally interesting boarded up buildings downtown. "You want an edgy environment."

You bet.

Of course I was skeptical -- this is the same city that's done nothing with its downtown lo these many years and didn't even have an art museum until 1979.

As we were leaving that first meeting, I said to a friend, "I just hope this doesn't turn out to mean riverfront condos for rich people."

Last week it looked worse than that.

A Tampa developer kicked off his campaign with a champagne lunch at the art museum to generate buzz about this thing he calls the Renaissance Center that he wants to build across Ashley Drive from the site of the much-touted new art museum: a 28-story office building.

All we have downtown is office buildings!

That's the whole problem.

That's why this arts district thing was cooked up -- let's face it, it's really more about downtown development than art -- to bring people downtown for anything other than work. Like, after 5. Like, on weekends.

Ron Rotella, the mayor's special consultant, agreed that, yes, the proximity to the arts district might help the developer, then added, "it would be nice for redevelopment on the east side of Ashley to complement the arts district."

Even if it's another office tower?

He repeated what he had said before, then said, "We'd like to see a mixed-use project happen."

Okay, this developer, Gregory Hughes, has promised that if he first builds the office tower -- and it's a huge, bulky thing -- then, if there is demand, he will build two smaller residential buildings on land he owns near it.

If he were my fiance, I'd ask for a very large stone.

The good news is there's still hope for those rich people who will want to live downtown.

In the next month and a half or so, the city will likely put out a request for proposals for a residential high-rise on land it owns, somewhere near the Poe parking garage and the river. Not on the river, the riverfront will be kept free, Rotella said, but with good views of the river and University of Tampa. The specific site would be worked out later.

It would have been nice to see the arts district grow from the inside out, to have it started by artists, to become a common ground for artists.

The deal for USF's Art Department to take over the cube building at 400 N Ashley has gone nowhere.

There's still no home for the Florida Orchestra. Maybe they can use someone's new condo to practice; it'll probably be about the size of Carol Morsani Hall.

In my last column I referred to Lynne McCarter as a first-time mother; in fact, she already had a daughter from a previous marriage.

-- Sandra Thompson is a writer living in Tampa. She can be reached at Tampa@sptimes.com. City Life appears on Saturday.

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