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Firms vie to create walk in the park

Three design firms are finalists for a contract to design a waterfront park for Ashley Drive.

TAMPA - Three out-of-town design firms were selected as finalists Monday in the quest to create a park in the city's cultural arts district.

Five firms made their pitches at the existing Tampa Museum of Art, slated to be replaced, when funding is secure, by a $62-million design by internationally known architect Rafael Vinoly.

A committee of eight people ranked the companies and voted to forward three names to the mayor for consideration: Thomas Balsley Associates of New York, Sasaki Associates of Massachusetts and Glatting Jackson, which has an office in Orlando.

The firms, brandishing portfolios of past waterfront projects, talked about their visions for downtown Tampa. The city wants to anchor the planned Ashley Drive museum with a place for people to bike, to read, to lunch or to just hang out.

The museum has raised more than $20-million, about $12-million shy of what it needs to break ground on a new 151,000-square-foot facility, a modernist building of glass and metal. The city has committed to contributing almost $30-million.

The waterfront park is still in the very early stages. All of the firms said they would heavily consider public input in their designs.

The firm that got the nod as the top choice, Balsley Associates, has developed such waterfront projects as Battery Park City Cinema 25 Pedestrian Plaza in New York and Gantry Plaza State Park in Queens.

Thomas Balsley "was quite impressive," said Ron Ibarra, the city's chief accountant. "He swayed me with his passion."

Emily Kass, director of the Arts Museum, called Balsley's work edgy and artistic.

The committee was made up of Kass, Ibarra and six others, all city employees.

Mayor Pam Iorio may take several weeks to make a decision.