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RON MATUSA corner tavern is torn down for a retail plaza as the section south of Gandy Boulevard continues to evolve.
Another sign of the times south of Gandy Boulevard: A dive of a bar has disappeared with little fanfare and will be replaced by a retail plaza with a tanning salon, nail spa and chain coffee shop.
JD's MacDill Tavern, a stucco shack at the corner of Interbay Boulevard and MacDill Avenue, was dismantled in August. In coming weeks, the Mediterranean-style Shoppes at Interbay Village will begin rising in its place.
"The MacDill Tavern needed to go," said Gene Wells, president of the Ballast Point Neighborhood Association. "Not that it was a problem ... it was just such an old facility and it wasn't reflecting the kind of development we're having in the Ballast Point area."
JD's, according to one of its waitresses, "is a family bar that just happens to open at 10 a.m.," wrote South Tampa's diva-poet Rhonda Kitchens in a 2001 Weekly Planet story.
"Mere feet from the Faith Tabernacle Assembly of God, apparently the sinners have engaged in decades of friendly yet occasionally final last calls," Kitchens continued. "Tales of domestic violence here are as thick as the head on the dollar beers."
Tampa Bay Property Developers bought the building and the half-acre it sits on from Earl E. Boggs in July, Hillsborough County property records show. The price: $415,000.
Boggs bought the property as an investment in 1988 - for $95,000.
"That's Ballast Point," said Michelle Krinsky, the Shoppes' property manager. "It's amazing what's happening."
Boggs, 59, said he initially considered leveling the bar, which was built in the 1940s. His vision: a strip mall with a bar, liquor store and hair salon. He dropped the plan when the nearby church objected.
Bars like JD's are a dying breed, he said. Neighbors object to new ones, and city rules make it tough to re-build or add on, he said.
"If you know anything about redneck taverns, you know Tampa is attempting to eliminate as many of them as possible," said Boggs, who lives in Citrus Park. "We're a tourist city, you know."
So far, more than half of the 7,000-square-foot retail center has been leased, Krinsky said. The developer, she added, is negotiating with a couple of coffee chains, including Starbucks Coffee.
The stores should open by February.
Tampa Bay Property Developers is the same company that proposed upscale townhouses and a retail center just a few blocks east of the Shoppes site, at Interbay and Bayshore boulevards. That plan called for 15,000 square feet of retail and four townhouses facing Russell Street. Some residents said they liked the commercial but not the residential.
The developers are no longer proposing retail for that site but are still pursuing up to 10 townhouses, Krinksy said. None, however, will face Russell Street. Instead, a single-family home is proposed for that lot.
Unlike the earlier proposal, the new plan does not require a zoning change or City Council approval, Krinksy said.
- Ron Matus can be reached at 226-3405 or matus@sptimes.com