Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Revived to thrive

Developers have a new plan for Central Park Village that is earning favor.

By JANET ZINK
Published August 8, 2005

TAMPA - Out of a failed attempt to bring the 2012 Summer Olympics to Tampa, one idea survived.

It was former County Commissioner Ed Turanchik's dream for redeveloping Central Park Village, a blighted public housing complex strategically located between downtown and Ybor City.

After the Olympic bid, which pegged the site for an Olympic Village, failed, Turanchik joined forces with developer Bill Bishop and Don Wallace, chief executive officer of Lazy Days Super RV Center. Together they conceived of buying up property around the 28 acres owned by the Tampa Housing Authority and turning it all in to a 157-acre master-planned community that dispersed 484 public housing units among thousands of luxury and midpriced condominiums, public parks and hip sidewalk cafes and shops.

They called their project Civitas. It went down in flames soon after its debut, when its backers pushed for government approval on a tight deadline.

Now, Turanchik's idea stands a fair chance of turning in to actual bricks and mortar.

Without Turanchik.

The Central Park Group, led by Bishop and Wallace, unveiled their plan last month for redeveloping the 50-year-old Central Park Village.

It's 60 acres instead of 157, but it looks remarkably similar to Civitas. It includes many of the same concepts, and their proposal even includes some of the same graphics used by Civitas.

Call it Civitas II.

On Tuesday, Bishop, Wallace and others will outline their plan for a selection committee charged with recommending to the Housing Authority a group to redevelop Central Park Village.

Like Civitas, a critical piece of the Central Park Group's proposal is the assembly of land beyond the borders of the existing development. The group had - and still has - a contract to purchase the nearby Tampa Park Apartments and a retail complex on Nebraska Avenue, a total of about 22 acres.

The odds of the Central Park Group landing the deal are favorable. They're the only team bidding for the project. Two other groups dropped out of the competition in July after their proposal to join forces was rejected by the Housing Authority.

Turanchik said he's fine with seeing his brainchild nurtured by other hands.

He said last week he no longer wants to be the front man for massive projects that turn him in to a lightning rod for controversy.

He's now quietly working on several other real estate deals and developing market-rate and affordable housing in West Tampa, some of them on lots he bought from his former Civitas partners.

"Everything is working out for the best. I am doing what I want to do," Turanchik said. "Staying out of the press is one of them."

His relationship with Bishop and Wallace is still strong, he said, and he's been watching the Central Park Group closely.

He thinks this time, the project will succeed.

"The whole thing is very complicated," Turanchik said. "It's community and social engineering. Civitas was way too much too fast, and I think the current pace is far more digestible."

Others agree.

"The process of Civitas was really what spelled its defeat," said Mayor Pam Iorio.

Turanchik announced Civitas in early December 2003. Six weeks later, with a deadline to apply for a federal grant to support the project looming, the developers pushed the city and county to approve a special taxing district to pay for new roads and other infrastructure in the community. It's a process that normally takes more than a year. Civitas needed it done in a week.

City officials and the Hillsborough County Commission quibbled over the details of the district. Everyone complained they didn't have enough time to fully understand what the project entailed.

"Even if the project did represent good sound planning, the process made them uneasy," Iorio said.

This time, she said, the plan "is following a good and logical process."

There's been a proposal and the selection committee will review it and make a recommendation to the Tampa Housing Authority board. If it's approved, the city and county will have plenty of time to negotiate the details of the taxing district. In the meantime, the entire plan is available online at www.centralparktampa.com giving the community opportunity to review it.

"I was in favor of the original Civitas plan," said City Council member Kevin White. "The only reason I voiced any concerns was that they threw it out at council at the last minute without giving us time to review the plan as well as having the residents as involved as they needed to be. It looks like this plan should encompass both of those. The residents will have a say-so and the city and administration will have time to weigh in on it. It's a win-win for everybody."

County Commissioner Tom Scott, a passionate supporter of Civitas, said the city and county will still need to negotiate the terms of the special taxing district.

But he likes this plan even better than Civitas.

In particular, he points to the Central Park Group's financial arrangement with the Tampa Housing Authority in exchange for the authority contributing its 28 acres to the project. Civitas would have given the authority $1,000 for every condominium and townhouse it sold and $500 for every rental unit initially leased. This plan calls for giving the authority a 33.3 percent ownership share in the land development effort, which Bishop estimates will be worth $1.6-billion.

"It puts them on a very solid foundation," Scott said. "It will be continued and continue to meet the needs of people."

Scott also likes that, like the Civitas plan, this plan allows current residents of Central Park Village to move directly from their old homes into new ones either within the Central Park project or in other nearby locations developed by the Central Park Group as they are built.

Bishop, who led the development of Westchase and FishHawk Ranch and normally works far behind the scenes, has emerged as Turanchik's replacement as the front man for Central Park Village's redevelopment.

He, too, says that timing is everything.

First of all, there's more time to consider the project.

"The other thing is, literally, the time is different," Bishop said. "When the Civitas proposal became public last time, the whole subject was kind of new to people. I don't think people had spent a lot of time thinking about Central Park. Because of Civitas, there is much more awareness of the issues and the subject."

In the year since Civitas died, other pieces of the plan that were overlooked because of the focus on Central Park have thrived.

Bishop's Renaissance Housing, which Civitas created to build new homes for Central Park Village residents, has completed construction of 10 townhomes on Columbus Drive. They include both market-rate and subsidized units.

Bishop's Renaissance Steel, a fabricator of light-gauge construction materials also born with Civitas, is set to open in Ybor City in the coming weeks. Bishop is working with the Tampa Bay Workforce Alliance to recruit people to work in the factory.

And construction has begun on the Heights, a 40-acre residential community overlooking the Hillsborough River and downtown Tampa that's backed by Civitas investors.

Bishop also proceeded with the creation of the Foundation for a Better Place, which uses deed restrictions to apply a 1.5 percent transfer fee on the sales from one homeowner to another. The money supports community activities.

"The more I thought about that concept, the more I liked it," Bishop said.

He established the foundation as part of Highland Park, a subdivision he's building in northwest Hillsborough County. He has contributed $30,000 to the Foundation.

In Central Park, the transfer fee will be 2.5 percent, with 1 percent going to the Tampa Housing Initiative. THI will help pay for maintenance and construction of affordable housing throughout the city.

What all this means is that Civitas, a group that Bishop declared "dead" last year still has some life.

And Turanchik's notion of a retooled Central Park Village may succeed without him.

"If all the stuff comes together, it will be great for the city and great for the residents," Turanchik said. "It's just that simple. I'm happy to see it going forward."

--Janet Zink can be reached at 226-3401 or jzink@sptimes.com

[Last modified August 8, 2005, 04:36:33]