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RON MATUSThe South Tampa neighborhood has low crime, good schools and a flattering resemblance to Palma Ceia.
VIRGINIA PARK - If Virginia Park were a state, it would be an in-between state, like Maryland or Texas, where clashing cultures bleed in from outside and blend into their own.
It hums in the geographic heart of South Tampa, surrounded by neighborhoods with contrary personalities. The modesty of South Westshore and Fair Oaks/Manhattan Manor tugs at it from the south. The more finicky tastes of Palma Ceia and Bayshore Beautiful push from the east.
The result: a hodgepodge of a neighborhood that is, at least for now, comfortable with its diversity.
"We're like a big melting pot, which is a strength," said John Weiss, president of the Virginia Park Residential Neighborhood Association.
In Virginia Park, bungalows with porch swings jostle with long, lean ranches, postage-stamp brick homes and, increasingly, 4,000-square-foot McMansions that flex on 50-foot-wide lots.
Some houses sell for the low $100,000s. Others are valued at $500,000.
Former state Rep. Chris Hart IV once lived in Virginia Park. So did Col. Tom Parker, Elvis' late manager.
In his pre-King Virginia Park days, Parker was a dogcatcher. These days, he'd be a rare breed. The neighborhood is more and more dominated by white-collar professionals. Their new or renovated houses aren't shy, and their yards boast blankets of St. Augustine grass.
The effect is magnetic.
"The price got too high in my neighborhood, so the developers moved over there," said Sue Lyon, president of the Bayshore Beautiful Neighborhood Association.
Tear-downs and add-ons shout from nearly every block - the same chorus sounding in other South Tampa neighborhoods, only more frenzied or infectious, depending on your slant on growth. It's hard to believe this is the same place that made international headlines in 1997, when the city bulldozed a house on Tacon Street after finding more than 1,000 rats inside.
The rats are long gone. Now humans do the swarming.
Some people want to live here so badly, one developer built a 2,700-square-foot house on Corona Street 15 feet from the back of the Howard Johnson hotel on Dale Mabry Highway. The asking price: $420,000.
"He'll probably get it," Weiss said.
Weiss summed up trends this way: Virginia Park, established in the 1950s and named for the wife of developer Palmer Potter, is absorbing its first big wave of new residents, many of them younger and wealthier than the neighborhood's pioneers. They're drawn by low crime, good schools - including top-tier Plant High - and the glow that comes from being mistaken for Palma Ceia.
For them, nothing is far away.
Britton Plaza edges Virginia Park on the south. Dale Mabry revs through its center.
Downtown and the West Shore business district are equal distances away.
Residents can satisfy cravings for Guatemalan or Lebanese breakfasts at the Olive Grove, or slurp down cafe con leche at El Fogon. They can get tattooed, buy a used guitar amp or pick out a casket - without ever leaving the neighborhood.
New blood is a double-edged sword.
New residents breathed life into the neighborhood association, which was defunct for decades until Weiss revived it three years ago. Now the group is one of the most active in South Tampa, weighing in on everything from commercial encroachment on Euclid Avenue to a fix for long-neglected Corona Playground, one of two city parks within Virginia Park's borders.
At the same time, new homes have left some feeling cramped.
Big houses on small lots are "creating a density down here that we can't live with," said Vicky Ferraro, 48, a Sevilla Street resident who was born and raised in the neighborhood.
Of particular concern: requests to split 100-foot lots for two houses. The City Council has considered about 20 such requests in three years and turned most of them down, Weiss said. But with dozens of the wide lots in play, more requests are inevitable, he said.
It's not just the changing look of Virginia Park that some people worry about. It's the sense of community.
Ferraro painted contrasting images. First, of her as a kid, splashing with friends in the creek that runs behind Palmira Avenue. Second, of people pulling into the garages of their giant new houses, shutting the door by remote control and never stepping outside.
"They never see their neighbors," she said.
Weiss doubts Virginia Park's diversity will disappear. Most homes will stay because they're too valuable to tear down, he said.
In the meantime, residents will find other ways to shape their future. The latest push involves beautifying a shop-lined stretch of Bay to Bay Boulevard between Lois and Manhattan avenues. There's no reason the commercial area can't be as handsome as, say, the Davis Islands business district, Weiss said.
As the neighborhood matures, so will its identity, he promised.
"Virginia Park is Virginia Park," he said. "We don't need to compete with Palma Ceia."
- Ron Matus can be reached at 226-3405 or matus@sptimes.com
VIRGINIA PARKPOPULATION: About 5,000
HOME TO: Schiller's German delicatessen, Olive Grove Cafe, Palma Ceia Antique Mall
DOMINATED BY: Variety of housing types
TREND: Tear-downs, add-ons, bigger houses
PRO: Within Plant High School boundary; next to Britton Plaza
CON: Traffic, relentless construction
CONTACT: John Weiss, 839-0572 or johnchesterweiss@juno.com Tampa is a collection of neighborhoods, with more than 50 south of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Hyde Park and Palma Ceia need little introduction, but others do. In an occasional series, which continues this week, City Times explores some of them.