Olympic vision

Ed Turanchik, the man trying to bring the 2012 Summer Olympics to the Tampa Bay area, may change the landscape of Tampa's downtown through his plans to better the city and attract the Olympic committee.

By JOHN HILL

© St. Petersburg Times,
published July 29, 2001

The man in charge of bringing the world's biggest event to Florida drives his SUV past the boarded-up housing project in downtown Tampa -- past the clotheslines, the overturned baby strollers, the cardboard in the road, past the police car -- and into the parking lot of an old and emptied school. He wheels around back, past the janitor peeling an orange, and stops at a chain link fence where three Muscovy ducks guard an otherwise lifeless running track.

"This," says Ed Turanchik, taking in the view, "is the heart of downtown Olympic Village."

That's the case, anyway, Turanchik will make this week, when members of a site-selection team from the U.S. Olympic Committee visit Central Florida to assess its bid to host the 2012 Summer Games. The Tampa they'll see in multimedia splendor during talks at the city's newest waterfront hotel is a far cry from the reality at would-be Olympic sites, where residents have sand for yards and prop open their windows with boom boxes and chairs.

Before Tampa can host the 2012 Games, the city faces a bigger job: Transforming hundreds of acres of squalor downtown into a Disney-esque version of Melting Pot U.S.A., where thousands of residents of all races and incomes live and work in self-sustaining communities. As head of Florida 2012, the regional Olympic bid committee, Turanchik -- an Ohio native, lawyer and onetime environmental darling on the Hillsborough County Commission -- is becoming Tampa's greatest builder. He is, by default, its unelected commissioner of public works. His multibillion dollar plan would not only reshape the downtown landscape; it would alter the politics, economics and social fabric of a stagnant urban core dramatically and for generations to come. No single effort in Tampa's history compares in size, potential or cost.

"This is big; this is probably one of the biggest urban redevelopment projects in the country," Turanchik admits.

Much of the debate since Turanchik hatched the bid on a Domino's Pizza box four years ago has focused on the cost to taxpayers, a figure still unknown. But a larger issue has been overlooked -- the immensity of moving dirt, bureaucracies, neighborhoods and people; the risk poverty, racism and a weak economy pose to publicly financed urban renewal; and the authority one private citizen will have in rearranging the landscape of a major Southern city. What makes the 2012 campaign important to watch is not the conjecture over Florida's chance to win, but the growing realization, among every branch of local government, that the bid will act as the framework for redeveloping downtown Tampa -- with or without the Olympics.

Start from scratch

Florida 2012 is a regional bid that would spread the games between St. Petersburg and Orlando. Orange County brings to the table hotels, theme parks and its international airport. Judo, fencing, weightlifting and table tennis would be held at the Orange County Convention Center. Pinellas offers gulf-front beaches and the downtown waterfront as backdrops for televised water sports. Among its venues: an Olympic diving facility in downtown St. Petersburg, wrestling at the Bayfront Center, basketball at Tropicana Field and beach volleyball on Clearwater Beach. Saddlebrook Resort in Pasco County would host tennis. But the heart -- the Olympic Stadium, the Olympic Village and most major competitions -- would be located in Tampa, where many of the would-be venues already exist.

The athletes' village and the stadium -- the signature Olympic sites and its two largest components -- would be built from scratch on what's now public housing in downtown Tampa, several blocks north of the business core. Hundreds of decrepit and crime-ridden apartments, owned by the government, would come down. Roads would disappear. Workers would level warehouses, build apartments, seawalls, night spots and shops, move schools and parks and lay commuter-rail lines from Ybor City to Hyde Park. Dirt, steel, concrete, cable, water -- acres and acres of it -- would be dug, razed, hauled, sunk and built across Hillsborough County and downtown.

Nearly $1-billion in public and private funds would go toward redeveloping two predominantly poor and black neighborhoods -- North Boulevard Homes on the city's west side, and Central Park, on the east. In purely economic terms, the plan represents a phenomenal opportunity. Central Park and North Boulevard are anchored by public housing projects that have long needed to go. The units are old, cramped and difficult to fix. Both projects are a drain on housing funds and a barrier to commercial investment. Central Park was scheduled to come down, anyway. "It wasn't worth rehabbing," said Tampa Housing Authority director Jerome Ryans.

Building new homes and businesses there would boost the tax base -- $6-million a year to the city, Turanchik believes -- while filling what would otherwise remain an immovable gap between downtown and the emergent neighborhoods to the north. Indeed, the plan is more about practicality than social justice. In central and east Tampa, the city has pinned millions of dollars worth of public and private investment on the tourist district of Ybor City. On the west side, the city recognizes the tremendous potential along the Hillsborough waterfront -- especially given the opportunity to develop large, clear tracts close to the downtown core. Community activists in West Tampa are also tired of waiting their turn. The tidiness of the redevelopment plan is that it serves the very political needs of those making the decisions.

New apartments would not only give modern families the larger living space they need; they could create a climate where private-sector developers would be willing to invest. Bringing the for-profits into the mix is essential to putting these tracts on the property tax roll, where they generate -- not drain -- money for local communities. "Most housing authorities can't do these deals by themselves," housing director Ryans says. "And once you build the market-rate units, they go back on the tax rolls."

Most of the land currently at North Boulevard Homes and Central Park is owned by a branch of government -- the Tampa Housing Authority, the Hillsborough school district or the city of Tampa. Government owns the land, and it owns the housing. It also is a primary employer and a major source of personal income. Turanchik's idea, which has caught fire among Tampa officials, is to use the public land as leverage to build two entirely new communities, where subsidized apartments would be sprinkled throughout a broader development of offices, retail and market-rate housing.

Here's how the plan would work: The city, in partnership with Florida 2012 and the Tampa Housing Authority, would offer incentives for developers to build mixed-use, mixed-income neighborhoods. All three partners play a critical role. The city would use its land-use and contracting authority to attract qualified developers. The Housing Authority would contribute the land and mine its pipeline to federal money. Florida 2012 would commit a portion of the $3-billion it expects to raise from the games to leave the communities in better shape. It would construct public housing to compensate for apartments not otherwise replaced, pay the costs to relocate residents during the time 17,000 athletes and officials will occupy the Olympic Village and set aside money for historic preservation and minority businesses.

And the proposed land is attractive bait. The North Boulevard site, where the Olympic Village would go, encompasses the last piece of unspoiled riverfront property downtown. Among its strengths: Waterfront access, oak-canopied streets, existing public services, few private-property holdings and proximity to I-275 and downtown. Tampa's riverwalk, which now ends south of I-275, would be extended north on the west bank of the Hillsborough River to Columbus Drive, thereby expanding the waterfront greenway that stretches south along Bayshore Boulevard.

At Central Park, the stadium site, the landlocked tract is a harder sell. Tampa officials are studying their options. One idea is to market Central Park as a bedroom community of Ybor City, a strategy aimed at bolstering the investment already there. "We were serious about Central Park before the Olympics came about," says Fernando Noriega, the city's development chief. "When you look at that area for housing, it's got potential."

'A whole new makeover'

Turanchik makes a point to stress that the Olympic bid is a public process, open to change, and the city of Tampa has reserved some rights to shape what's happening on the ground. So do housing advocates and community leaders. But the legalese in the bid protocol doesn't balance the working relationship, at least in a practical sense.

While both Florida 2012 and the city are committed to redevelop the downtown, the city is happy for Olympic organizers to take the lead, even though the two sides have distinct goals, resources and responsibilities. Part of the reason is ambivalence; others believe the allure of an Olympiad can paper over political and jurisdictional disputes that often bring government projects to a halt.

"The redevelopment could give downtown a whole new makeover, and I think we would have done it, anyway, given the attraction of the river," City Council member Bob Buckhorn says. "But natural market forces are not going to move fast enough to meet the demand." What the bid provides, he says, is a commitment in principle to move ahead.

Tampa's commitment to reshape downtown, and to host the Olympics, is measured in tangible ways by the faith it has invested in Turanchik's vision. Its agreement, in principle, to offer development incentives is broad and open-ended. Tampa will hand over all city-owned property in the redevelopment area and fast-track all land use, zoning and other regulatory procedures. It will finance -- to an uncertain degree -- Olympic Park, a massive greenway near Ybor City, and an Ybor trolley rail line extension through downtown. The city will also be responsible for coming through with improvements to roads and recreational facilities.

But no concession better illustrates the role Turanchik will play in shaping the city's physical landscape than the city's agreement to use condemnation power -- the government's right to seize private property -- to fulfill Olympic obligations. While residents displaced by the Olympics are guaranteed a replacement home, these low-income communities could -- despite the best-intentioned plans -- be moved up to two miles from their current location.

No one doubts the newer homes will provide a better living environment, but the prospect of moving subsidized housing to the outlying areas reflects the broader imprint Turanchik may leave on city development patterns a decade or more down the road. City officials have a point. Condemnation, as a practical matter, is the only way for communities to guarantee their commitments. The question is: How far will city and housing officials go to ensure that poor and minority residents benefit, and who, in the final analysis, will balance that decision?

An oversight committee, created this month, will give city and housing officials a voice in guiding the redevelopment effort. But local government has made it clear -- it has hitched itself to the Olympics in the hope of getting something done. "Even if we lose the Olympics, coming out of it, at least, we'll have a master plan," councilman Buckhorn says. And therein lies a story that is quintessential Tampa. Political and business leaders have staked their hopes, their city and millions of dollars on this bid because they know Ed Turanchik, and they see his Olympic goals as synonymous with the priorities he made as a Democratic commissioner in local government. Tampa's bid for the world's biggest sporting event -- a measure, Buckhorn says, of "whether we're ready for the prime time" -- spawned from small-town values of faith and trust. "The 2012 people, they've been good to us," the housing authority's Ryans says. "They understand what we're trying to do. I think it'll all work out."

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