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Price was right for hospital site

Legend has it the site was selected from a drawing in a sand trap during a golf game of city movers and shakers.

By SHERRI DAY
Published April 22, 2005

Many people question Tampa General Hospital's location. Situated on an island, crammed near houses, the waterfront and businesses, the hospital's site at times seems less than ideal.

Especially during hurricane season. (The hospital sits just 12 feet above sea level.)

Especially now that hospital officials are at odds with some residents over expansion plans.

Hospital officials decided to build on Davis Islands because the land was a bargain, historians said.

It was free.

In the 1920s, Tampa was a growing city with a population just more than 100,000, Tampa Bay History Center Curator Rodney Kite-Powell said.

The city needed more hospital beds. But city officials did not want to expand Gordon Keller Memorial Hospital, a 32-bed municipal facility that sat on North Boulevard behind the Tampa Bay Hotel.

Meanwhile, real estate developer D.P. Davis forged ahead with plans for a luxury community on Davis Islands. In order to gain city approval for his plans, he agreed to erect a bridge from downtown Tampa and designate 55 acres for a public park.

City officials agreed. Later, when the city was scouting for land to build a new hospital, they looked to Davis Islands.

According to local lore, Davis, hospital board member Dr. J. Browne Farrior, James H. Swann and the mayor of Tampa picked the location of the hospital during a golf game.

In a sand trap at the Palma Ceia Country Club, Davis drew an outline of the island and asked the men where they wanted the hospital. Farrior pointed to the island's northern tip, Kite-Powell said.

Construction on the new 186-bed facility began in March 1926, Kite-Powell said.

Records show little opposition to the hospital's locale. Developers did not seem to fear natural disaster.

It was "the attitude of the 1920s," Kite-Powell said. "They thought for the future, but they didn't think in catastrophic terms."

Even so, they were not immune to disaster. In 1921, a hurricane hit the Tampa Bay area and deluged much of downtown Tampa. Had the hospital already been on Davis Islands, flooding would have destroyed it, Kite-Powell said.

Undaunted, officials opened Tampa Municipal Hospital on Nov. 6, 1927. Noted for its red-blond brick and spacious screened porches, the hospital was the city's largest municipal health care facility. In 1956, officials changed the name to Tampa General Hospital.

Since its inception, the hospital has grown from one building to a 10-structure complex with more than 800 beds, hospital officials said. Until 1967, the rehabilitation center and medical residents' parking sites were underwater, records show.

Over the years, the hospital has increased the geographical size of Davis Islands, Kite-Powell said.

"The shape of the island north of the hospital has been changed," he said. "Land's been added to it. It's easiest to tell from the air that there's more island than there used to be."

Sherri Day can be reached at 226-3405 or sday@sptimes.com

[Last modified April 21, 2005, 08:33:10]