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I'm thinking of changing careers. I want to be a developer, the big kind who builds condo towers and strip centers.
Why, I hope my boss would ask?
Because in this town everyone wants to make developers happy. No one wants to make them sad. We'll do anything to make them stay.
Take the latest debate over public art.
The City Council last week decided to move forward with expanding the city's requirement for public art to include multifamily and commercial projects in the Channel District. It also upped the cap on developers' payments to $400,000.
Right now only developers in downtown's central business district must set aside 0.75 percent of their project's cost for public art or give 0.5 percent to the city's public art fund. The max is $200,000.
City officials have been talking for more than a year about beefing up the public art ordinance as a way to add some visual bling. The logic: If we want to become a "City of the Arts," we need more art visible to everyone.
A committee looked at raising developers' contributions to 1 percent, expanding the boundaries and axing the cap. In the end, the council got a watered-down recommendation from Mayor Pam Iorio and her administration.
The message was: "Yes, we like public art, but we don't want to upset our developer friends."
Council member John Dingfelder pushed to expand the program citywide but was squashed. Limiting the program to downtown and the Channel District excludes many projects worthy of public art, he said, citing condo towers along Bayshore Boulevard and areas near the airport.
"Are we a City of the Arts or are we a Downtown of the Arts?" he said.
This notion that we shouldn't ruffle developers is ridiculous. I can't imagine developers up and leaving if the public art fee increased or went citywide. We're not in some dreary place up north. We're in Tampa, Fla., the Sunshine State, where everyone and their relative lands at some point.
The fee isn't unreasonable, and I doubt any developer would go belly up because of it. Developers of a $1-million project now spend up to $75,000 on public art. The requirement for Donald Trump's megamillion high-rise was a measly $200,000.
Chump change, and easily passed on to buyers or absorbed by less expensive doorknobs.
Tampa needs to stop feeling like the ugly stepchild no one will love. We've got plenty to offer, and developers know it. Did the Atlanta developers come here to help build the SkyPoint condos because they felt sorry for us? Heck, no. They came because they knew they could make money.
And get this, they didn't mind paying the public art fee. They embraced the idea and have a cool art element planned for their building. In fact, they used the location on Ashley Drive near the Tampa Museum of Art as a big part of their marketing pitch.
No one is suggesting that public art be a requirement for single-family homes, although I would support charging subdivision developers. As it stands, the requirement actually favors suburban sprawl. Developers in the urban core have to pay, but those in the 'burbs don't.
Upping the fee would put Tampa more in line with other Florida cities with similar regulations. Clearwater, Palm Beach and Boynton Beach each have 1 percent fees, while Delray Beach and Palm Beach Gardens have 1.5 percent. And Clearwater's program, which was based on Tampa's, is citywide.
Fortunately, the issue in Tampa is still up for debate. The proposed changes must go to the Hillsborough County City-County Planning Commission, then back to the council for final consideration.
The city attorney's office is rewriting the public art ordinance and should have it ready for the Planning Commission in about a month. Depending on scheduling, it will likely return to the council in late January or February.
In the meantime, Dingfelder plans to call the West Shore Alliance to gauge interest in expanding the boundaries to the West Shore area.
Ann Kulig, the alliance's marketing director, loves the idea of installing a gateway to the city near Tampa International Airport, possibly along Boy Scout Boulevard. But whether area developers want to pay a fee for it remains to be seen.
In the next few weeks, the Alliance will put together a group to talk about the issue.
"We don't know how our people stand on it, but we're putting it out there," Kulig said.
I wish I were one of the developers sitting at the table.
THE LAST DROP: The City Council showed great restraint last week when it ditched an idea to install 100 signs around the city urging clean rivers and bays through an Adopt-a-Water program. A private company would have found corporate sponsors for the signs and given half of the proceeds to the city for water cleanup programs. Mayor Pam Iorio liked the idea; the council did not, saying the city doesn't need more signs. Amen. That's not the kind of public art we need.
- Susan Thurston can be reached at 226-3394 or thurston@sptimes.com