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Schools

Where will city put growing number of students?

With land at a premium, the suburban model doesn't work inside Tampa's borders.

By JANET ZINK
Published January 11, 2006

TAMPA - Overcrowded schools aren't just a problem in Hillsborough County's booming suburbs.

The city needs attention, too.

That was the message city officials delivered to members of the School Board and the district superintendent Tuesday at a meeting requested by City Council member Linda Saul-Sena.

"I want to ask you to reconsider the way you view urban schools," she told school superintendent MaryEllen Elia, school board members Candy Olson and Carolyn Bricklemyer, and others. "A lot of the requirements that have been based on the suburban premise of infinite land are not relevant."

For example, city schools often don't have as much available space for parking, she said.

Elia said she knows the city has different problems, and pointed to the Rampello Downtown Partnership School as an example of a new approach toward city schools. The school serves students in kindergarten through eighth grade whose parents work downtown. Rampello opened in 1997 in a downtown church and moved this school year into a three-story building beside the Lee Roy Selmon Crosstown Expressway.

"We're aware we can't continue to expect 10 and 12 acres for an elementary school in the city of Tampa," Elia said.

Elia said they are looking for more sites around downtown, which is in the midst of a residential building boom. New residents also are moving into the Channel District and Ybor City, and nearly 2,000 units are slated to be built at the Heights, a proposed community just north of the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. West Tampa and the area around West Shore and Gandy boulevards, where thousands of homes are slated for construction, also are neighborhoods of concern, Elia said.

"We need to work with the city to find sites where we can put smaller schools or we're going to have to build wings where we have room," Olson said.

City council member John Dingfelder suggested the school district consider submitting a proposal to redevelop the Fort Homer Hesterly Armory as a school. The National Guard is scheduled to turn that land over to the city, which will issue a request for proposals for the site this month. More than a dozen developers have expressed interest in the project.

"Everyone has a fair shot at the armory," Dingfelder said.

Olson jumped on the idea.

"There's a park across the street," she said. "It would be fabulous."

Dingfelder also said he would urge the Hillsborough County Commission to increase school impact fees, a move commissioners have resisted.

"There's strength in numbers," Dingfelder said. "It looks like you are hanging out there by yourselves."

Hillsborough County school impact fees are among the lowest in the state, charging only $196 per unit. Broward County charges $1,620, Hernando charges $2,406, and Orange levies $6,786.

"We need to be part of that discussion with the county since it does affect us," Dingfelder said.

[Last modified January 11, 2006, 00:40:10]