Downtown's reach for the sky ignores fundamental earthly ideals
By MARY JO MELONE
Published March 29, 2004
Just when I thought it was time to feel upbeat about downtown Tampa's future, somebody comes along and starts talking refrigerators again.
Refrigerator is my code word for the big boxes - office buildings and other structures, like the Convention Center and the Performing Arts Center - that were built downtown and have all the warmth of iceboxes. They were supposed to spark a revival. All they spawned were more refrigerators.
Now two more may be coming. Two buildings, one 50 stories, the other 51, are on the boards, both residential condominium projects. Fifty stories? Somebody has us confused with New York.
This is taller than any condo on Bayshore Boulevard and on the same scale as the office high-rises downtown.
One of the projects, on the Hillsborough River, promises 7,700-square-foot penthouses. That's three times the size of an ordinary home.
Guess who's coming to dinner. Paris Hilton?
The other project, on Whiting Street, will even offer a day care center.
Oh, I should be jubilant. For these skyscrapers will not house workers hunched over keyboards in cubicles 9-to-5, but designer-bedecked, Cuisinart-loving, corporate-climbing young adults as well as aging boomers with hefty IRAs living the swell life.
Yes, people who are not pushing shopping carts will finally live downtown.
So what's my beef?
My beef is that these high-rise condo buildings may do no more for downtown than the office buildings. High-rises too often don't respect the street. The builders are only interested in offering unobstructed water views to those with the cash to buy them. Stick a couple of high-rises in the same space, and presto! You have a high-priced concrete canyon, with the high-rises dwarfing the two- and three-story buildings around them.
Downtown Tampa has many older, smaller buildings worthy of renovation that, if converted to condos or apartments, would be more interesting, livelier and respectful of the size and scale of downtown's center. But they aren't going to be fixed up. Who wants to renovate when you can hold on to your property until somebody comes along with a fat offer and plans for another high-rise?
It's inevitable. There are essentially no height restrictions on downtown construction, unless air traffic controllers object. Downtown real estate is absurdly expensive. Investors behind the project on the Hillsborough River spent as much as $10-million for 11/2 acres. They need a lot of condos to turn a profit.
"In order to make it work, you have to go to the sky," says Ron Weaver, the lawyer for the riverfront project.
There are people - and I am trying to believe them - who swear that downtown Tampa is poised for a renaissance after 20 years of false starts. Weaver is naturally one of them. He's so pumped he declared to me last week that "Tampa is the sexiest city in America."
He must have his mind on Paris Hilton.
The believers tell me that the residential high-rises will have a far more positive impact than I imagine. They say that once people move downtown, small businesses of the sort you need where you live will follow. Dry cleaners. Hair salons. Restaurants. Boutiques. Gyms. Galleries.
Please, pretty please. Make it be so.
The city's urban design manager, Wilson Stair, told me the city is about to review its downtown development rules. He suggested that it's unfair to compare Tampa's progress, or lack of it, with that of other cities. We're still too new. "It's not instant pudding," Stair said. "Cities evolve over time."
Yes, and they evolve smarter and more sophisticated than Tampa has. Why don't we have a height restriction downtown? Why do we leave things to market forces - the forces that produce high-rises - and hope for the best? Why doesn't the city do more to encourage restoration downtown? Why has the idea of taking advantage of the waterfront by creating a pedestrian walkway from the downtown bayfront to the riverside been tossed around for 30 years and never gotten very far?
I'll stop ranting for now. It's a process. We're evolving. They say so. But I'm still not holding my breath.
