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Letter to the editor

What's the matter with Ybor?

Ybor City merchants say they're struggling.

By BRADY DENNIS
Published July 23, 2004

[Times photo: Chris Zuppa] Since 1995, Seventh Avenue had closed to vehicles at 9 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. That changed to 11 p.m. in March, causing a stir. On a recent Friday, a human deluge took the place of cars at 11:37 p.m. Teenagers: What's bugging Ybor?

Is a change in traffic rules to blame, or do deeper problems exist?

YBOR CITY - On a recent weekday afternoon, several dozen Ybor City business owners poured into the Italian Club's ornate dance hall on Seventh Avenue.

They did not come to dance. They came to debate.

For years, the streets of Ybor had closed to cars at 9 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

That changed to 11 p.m. in March, and many of the business owners weren't happy.

One after another, they stepped to the microphone and told a committee of the Ybor City Development Corp. that they were losing business, that the change was killing the spirit of a uniquely pedestrian place.

"If you take away the street closing (at 9), you take away the experience," said Randy Levin, owner of Elmer's Sports Cafe. "People come here for the Ybor experience."

Nightclub owners said the lines outside their doors have no place to go when there's traffic in the streets - that is, if any customers show up before 11 p.m. anymore.

Bar owners said fewer pedestrians mean fewer bodies in their bars.

A bakery owner, a flower shop owner, a deejay - they all said business has suffered.

And then Jay Miller, who helped develop Centro Ybor, stepped to the mike and shifted the discussion altogether.

"I don't think it's a matter of when the street closes," he said. "It's really the image. The district has changed. It's the product we're selling that we need to work on."

During the 1990s, Ybor City experienced a rebirth of sorts.

While artists complained about bars taking over and City Hall worried about public safety, entrepreneurs reveled in success.

The St. Petersburg Times described it this way in a September 1994 article:

The honeycomb-patterned sidewalks teem with a kaleidoscope of humanity - yuppies, Hare Krishnas, frat boys, tough chicks, tourists, punk rockers, glamor girls, bikers, street musicians and high school geeks.

Across the street, a line of 20-somethings dressed in black wraps around two sides of the cavernous techno-dance club known as the Masquerade ... Tampa Bay has no other place like Ybor City on a weekend night.

Crowds had grown so large that city officials grappled for solutions.

They passed an anticruising ordinance along Seventh Avenue, but the crowds kept swelling.

At its worst, city traffic engineers reported, the 10-block drive took 45 minutes.

In the fall of 1995, city leaders experimented with closing the strip to traffic at 9 each weekend night.

Police said the number of street fights dropped by a third and the cruising problem disappeared.

Then-Mayor Dick Greco praised the new "atmosphere." Despite a few gripes about barricades and parking, most business owners also voiced their support.

The experiment became tradition.

It stayed that way for nearly 10 years until March, when at the suggestion of the YCDC, Mayor Pam Iorio okayed a recommendation to move the street closing time to 11 p.m.

YCDC manager Vince Pardo said several things prompted the change.

Among them: fewer people showing up before 11 p.m. and the desire to experiment with valet parking along the street.

The new rule also allowed patrons to park later on Seventh Avenue.

"We're trying to find the closest thing to a consensus as possible," Pardo said. "We're trying to find that decision that adversely affects the least amount of people."

Judging by the recent meeting, no consensus exists.

More than 30 merchants signed a petition requesting the street closing return to 9 p.m. Although several speakers said they preferred the later closing time, most said just the opposite.

"The bottom line is, we're losing a lot of money," said Jimmy Brothers, general manager of the Amphitheater dance club. "It's affecting all of us."

Then came the deeper discussion raised by Miller and others: Why is Ybor City really suffering?

Patrick Manteiga, publisher of Tampa's La Gaceta newspaper, said it could be a variety of problems - the increase in parking fees, the economy, the perception of Ybor City as a high-crime area that caters mostly to teens.

Not to mention the stiff competition in recent years from Channelside, International Plaza and even BayWalk in St. Petersburg.

"Ybor City as a whole needs improving," Manteiga said. "Instead of this guesswork, we should spend the money to survey the people who come to Ybor City. We need to get down to the basics of trying to market Ybor City as a whole. We ought to really study the issue. We ought to use science."

Sara Romeo nodded in agreement.

She and her husband have owned businesses in Ybor for 15 years, including Studio 1515, a coffee shop that opened late last year.

She pointed to a proposed visioning study for the district and urged her fellow merchants to wait for the results - which might take until next year - before implementing more changes.

"Let's do this in an intelligent way," she said, "instead of off the cuff, by the seat of your pants."

Nevertheless, it appears the committee was persuaded by all the dissent.

On July 14, during an afternoon session at the YCDC office, committee members voted 7-4 to change the street closing back to 9 p.m.

Now the recommendation must work its way past the YCDC board and through city administration for approval.

In all likelihood, the strip soon will close earlier again on Fridays and Saturdays.

Until that happens, George Wilds will do what he always does.

He will stand outside the Blue Shark, a blues bar he has owned more than six years, and wave people in off Seventh Avenue.

On a recent Friday about 10 p.m., he waved at people walking past the front door, urging them inside.

He even waved at the drivers rolling slowly down the crowded street.

"I can't pull them out of their cars," Wilds said, shaking his head. "Right now, (business) is slower than it should be."

An hour later, to his relief, the barricades went up.

The cars vanished from Seventh Avenue.

The revelers formed long lines outside clubs and poured into the streets.

- Brady Dennis can be reached at 813 226-3386 or dennis@sptimes.com

[Last modified July 23, 2004, 01:01:11]