Opinion: Making a strong downtown

Now that downtown St. Petersburg has come alive, city leaders in Tampa are crossing the bay, looking to copy that experience. The two downtowns have a different geography, a different history along their waterfronts and a different economic base, but the makings of a strong downtown are fairly universal. Tampa Mayor Dick Greco has built momentum by supporting new arts and tourist facilities, but the effort needs work along a wider front.

Tampa can draw only so many lessons from St. Petersburg's recent success. Tampa never protected its downtown waterfront, never saw residential housing as important downtown and was late to create parks and greenspace. Of course, the Hillsborough River is a tiny fraction of the asset Tampa Bay provides the downtown St. Petersburg waterfront, and downtown Tampa is harder to redevelop because of the presence of heavier industry. The secret is not duplicating BayWalk -- Tampa's Channelside shops are a variation of that -- but creating an energetic environment across a much bigger area.

Greco's pitch this month for a developer to build residences downtown was a major step in the right direction. Permanent residents are a basic ingredient for any downtown to flourish. They provide retailers a customer base, attract investment and build a sense of personal security. Reasonably priced apartments, as opposed to luxury high-rises, seem the way to go, given the draw to young families and singles who could live and work downtown. Businesses would benefit most from housing that spans income ranges, appealing to year-round residents who form the backbone of every community.

Tampa has a much broader downtown core than St. Petersburg's, and the massive public investments being made, in Tampa's trolley car system and the arts and tourist districts, make terrific amenities for any residential community. Downtown also needs to be more interesting and pedestrian-friendly. Curtis Hixon Park is lovely but stark and underused. The city needs to find reasons for students from the University of Tampa to spend more time downtown. Creative, outgoing young people give downtowns energy. Something as simple as a weekly flea market on the riverwalk might give locals a better appreciation of the city's culture and physical beauty.

The most promising aspect of Tampa's failed Olympic bid was the blueprint it would have created for downtown development. The organizer, Ed Turanchik, saw better than most how apartments, parks and mass transit could make downtown livable. The city and the business community should pick up on that effort. As St. Petersburg and other cities show, there is appeal to places where people can work, live, walk and shop. Tampa has the land, the money and the demographics; it needs a few people with power and vision to make downtown the place to be.

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