What could we do with Albert Whitted Airport?

Let's walk on the wild side: Imagine a sky needle, or an amusement park a la Coney Island.

[Times photo: Fred Victorin] Albert Whitted Airport in St. Petersburg occupies a 110-acre chunck of real estate that rolls out into Tampa Bay.

By BRYAN GILMER, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published July 1, 2002

ST. PETERSBURG -- First, something everyone can agree upon: It is one sweet piece of land.

It comprises 110 acres that jut into Tampa Bay. It's flat and roughly square, with water views on three sides. It's public land, suitable for whatever the public wants. The weekend saw one edge of it hosting sailing ships.

Waterfront baseball park? The San Francisco Giants built picturesque Pacific Bell Park on San Francisco Bay for $250-million. Could such a facility replace Tropicana Field? Taxpayers still owe more than $100-million on the loans to build that stadium. Amusement park? Coney Island's thrill rides draw millions to the Brooklyn shore. Could they just as well come to St. Petersburg's waterfront? An amusement park would have to compete with Busch Gardens, and new parks are having difficulty financially, one park manager says. Festival retail Baltimore's Inner Harbor shopping and entertainment development gave rise to an aquarium and two sports stadiums. Does that sound like downtown St. Petersburg? "What's done down there should be complementary to the development patterns of downtown, not overly competitive," says architect Tim Clemmons.

Interesting, but temporary.

As it stands now, the serious development ideas for the site being kicked around among city officials and developers are just that: serious. Perhaps they don't pump adrenaline into your blood.

One: Keep Albert Whitted Airport and invest millions to improve it. Not shockingly, the businesses and hobbyist pilots who use it favor that.

Two: In a decade or so, tear up the runways and remove the sewage plant from one corner of the airport and build a new 70-acre neighborhood of five-story condominiums and shops with a 40-acre strip of waterfront parkland.

For fun, the St. Petersburg Times sought out some jazzy ideas -- however impractical -- fit for a city that built an upside-down pyramid on a pier. Most of them came from readers who posted the suggestions on the Times' Internet discussion board.

First, a disclaimer: Some of the ideas are ridiculous, expensive and wacky.

But hey, this is St. Petersburg, the city that spent more than $100-million on a domed baseball stadium when it had no major league team. The city that once signed over practically the whole downtown to a developer, which planned but failed to turn it into a shopping mall for rich people.

So, dream on:

A waterfront ballpark

The San Francisco Giants are happy with their new Pacific Bell Park, a nostalgic, outdoor ballpark directly on San Francisco Bay.

"It's definitely had a dramatic impact in terms of our attendance," said Alfonso Felder, special assistant to the team's chief operating officer. "It's the first time we've had a venue in a waterfront location within walking distance of downtown."

The park offers gorgeous views of the bay over the right field fence.

Unlike Tropicana Field, the ballpark is not drab inside and doesn't resemble a big mobile home. It has real grass and no roof support rings for fly balls to clank against.

In answer to the money objection, the Giants built it almost entirely with $250-million they raised themselves. When city development Administrator Rick Mussett was asked about doing the same here, there was a long silence from the other end of the phone.

"I'd like to see Tropicana Field work," Mussett said -- a subtle reminder that taxpayers still owe well over $100-million on the loans to build that stadium. "Before we would look at that, I would like to see how baseball does here with a competitive team on the field. I think it's premature to raise that question on that site. Or any site."

A sky needle

Toronto's 1,815-foot CN Tower pierces the Canadian sky on the shore of Lake Ontario, making the skyline look like a Star Wars planet.

Fast elevators whisk visitors to a pod 1,100 feet up. You can see for 70 miles.

Canadian National Railways built it in 1976 as a mount for television antennas.

"From an engineering standpoint, there is no problem of putting up a structure like that if we want to go to the fun side," said Alaa K. Ashmawy, a professor of civil engineering at the University of South Florida.

It could even be designed to withstand hurricanes, he added. But it would cost "hundreds of millions of dollars," he said.

Mussett agreed a tower would draw tourists, but he's not sure where St. Petersburg would find the greenbacks.

"It is kind of a monument, and I'm sure it doesn't generate enough revenue to pay for itself," he said.

There he goes: practical thinking.

A Coney clone

Coney Island has lured millions to the Brooklyn shore to ride roller coasters, whirl in circles and win Kewpie dolls.

Coney's thrill rides fit right into the city grid, so why not a tangle of roller coasters and Ferris wheels in place of runways?

Panama City Beach has a popular Coney-style park called Miracle Strip Park. But Buddy Wilkes, the general manager, says it wouldn't work here.

Two words explain why: Busch Gardens.

Besides, Wilkes said, the latest couple of amusement parks built from scratch are going bankrupt. Even Coney Island's best days are way behind it. Still, one or two amusement rides on the waterfront might work.

"You might have a Ferris wheel or a carousel, those types of rides at one end, and at the other end something a little more active, maybe a tower drop ride," Wilkes said.

Festival retail

Baltimore turned a run-down collection of industrial buildings on its waterfront into the "Inner Harbor," a big downtown draw. It began in 1981 when the Rouse Co. built a shopping and entertainment development called Harborplace. Since then, an aquarium and two new sports stadiums were built.

"It's the No. 1 tourist attraction in Baltimore," said Rouse spokeswoman Nancy Tucker. "You go to Harborplace and then you branch out from there and go to the aquarium and the science center."

But St. Petersburg architect Tim Clemmons said Inner Harbor sounds a lot like downtown St. Petersburg. "Don't we already have all of that?"

Clemmons likes the mixed-use urban neighborhood that city economic development director Ron Barton wants to build.

"What's done down there should be complementary to the development patterns of downtown, not overly competitive," he said. Yet some clever feature in the new waterfront park Barton suggests might bring in visitors. And he has asked his graduate urban planning students at the University of South Florida to suggest how to keep it from becoming 40 blocks of identical rooftops. One way: hire builders with different styles.

Any redevelopment remains far in the future. The city would need to get out of a pledge to the Federal Aviation Administration to keep the airport for 20 more years. But Mussett concedes that the possibilities are nearly infinite.

"I think there would be high-level, high-profile national interest," he said, adding. "Anything that happens has to be preceded by some pretty solid market feasibility analysis."

Translation: nothing too wacky.

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