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Interests clash over Wal-Mart plans

While some say a supercenter near the city limits would destroy Ybor's character, others would welcome having groceries nearby.

By MICHAEL VAN SICKLER
Published February 28, 2005

[Times photo: Keri Wiginton] Box Factory Lofts, a cigar box factory that is being converted into lofts, is across the street from the possible location of a new Wal-Mart in Ybor City.

[Times photo: Melissa Lyttle] Andrew Floyd, 62, has seen a lot of changes in his Ybor City neighborhood in the 45 years since his family moved into a house on Third Avenue where he still lives today. He is excited about the possibility of Wal-Mart opening nearby. "That Wal-Mart is a good thing for poor or elderly people like me," said Floyd.

TAMPA - Lofts in a renovated 90-year-old cigar box factory at the edge of Ybor City provide features that are anything but cookie-cutter. Exposed duct work, wood beams. Historical authenticity.

"An exclusive urban oasis like no other," says the Web site to Box Factory Lofts on E Second Avenue.

So when it leaked last week that Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is considering a supercenter on land diagonal from the old factory along Adamo Drive, the project's real estate agent had reservations.

"It's great that this urban core has attracted Wal-Mart's attention," said Dallas Coffield, a Realtor with Smith & Associates. "But if I had my preference, it wouldn't be to have a giant store there. This isn't suburbia."

After years in which Ybor City has struggled to shake its hard-drinking reputation, the historic district is enjoying a residential rebirth. Investors are betting millions that an urban atmosphere here will attract young professionals and empty-nesters.

At the same time, Wal-Mart's flirtation with the 30 acres southeast of 22nd Street and Adamo Drive poses what could become an identity crisis. How does Ybor retain the ambience responsible for its revival if an icon of Everywhere USA builds on its edge?

"What the housing developers are finally seeing is that Ybor City is a unique community that can attract investment," said Kennedy Smith, a historic preservation consultant. "But a Wal-Mart is a massive sponge that soaks up market demand for decades, locking out quirky local businesses suitable for this area. If I was a developer of one of those urban townhomes, that would worry me."

A Wal-Mart just south of Adamo Drive sounds tempting. The land is hardly drawing raves the way it's being used. A drab, windowless 564,000 square-foot warehouse built in the 1930s sits on the land, but it's only partly filled by one tenant, the Tampa Tribune's distribution center. A bigger reason why Wal-Mart is so seductive is there is almost no retail for people who live in Ybor.

Andrew Floyd, 62, moved to Ybor 45 years ago when it was a thriving neighborhood of Cubans, Italians and African-Americans. Over the years, most of his neighbors left. In the 1980s, homes abandoned because of a drug epidemic were knocked down to make room for warehouses. Now investors are sprucing up the remaining homes around him.

But grocery stores are reluctant to return. To get food, he drives 15 minutes to a Kash n' Karry on 50th Street. Floyd said he lives off Social Security, so he would embrace Wal-Mart's discount prices.

"I think it would be great," he said. "I'll shop there."

City officials see Wal-Mart's interest in the Adamo site as a seal of approval.

"It's definitely an affirmation, one more sign that maybe this time things will really start to happen in Ybor and the downtown," said Mark Huey, city economic development administrator.

Only recently has the Bentonville, Ark.-based company shown interest in urban areas.

For many urban dwellers, the store signifies suburban sprawl. They complain they don't want the traffic congestion, the asphalt parking lots, and the big box retail power that can drive local shops out of business.

The Adamo land is zoned industrial, so Tampa City Council members would need to approve the store. But the location is just south of the historic district, so it would avoid the design requirements that regulate new construction inside the district.

That concerns Patrick Manteiga, publisher of La Gaceta. If city officials don't force Wal-Mart to alter its typical suburban design, Adamo will be tainted for generations, he said.

A company spokesman said he couldn't comment on the Adamo Drive property, but he said Wal-Mart tries to adjust store design to conform to local tastes.

But a supercenter's 250,000 square feet of retail space provide a bigger shock to an area than its aesthetics, said Peter Brink, a senior vice president for the Washington, D.C.-based National Trust Historic Preservation.

"When a Wal-Mart goes into an area like Ybor, it's the death knell for any future retail, save for a random dry cleaner or Starbucks," Brink said.

City officials say they're confident this supercenter wouldn't hinder Ybor's attempt to get more retail. The proposed Wal-Mart location is six blocks south of Seventh Avenue, far enough that locally owned shops and grocers could still thrive, said Vince Pardo, president of the Ybor City Development Corp.

[Last modified February 28, 2005, 09:07:15]