Talk about your dilemmas.
Tampa’s Bayshore Boulevard is an aesthetic icon. Small wonder nearby residents took considerable umbrage when the city waste water department built a concrete block enclosure in the median to house a generator.
The city, however, has a case. There is a demonstrable need for a back-up generator, because the Bayshore pump station necessarily fails during power outages. The generator is part of a $1.7 million project to prevent wastewater overflows.
A couple of points in the context of compromise.
There’s nothing aesthetic about spilled sewage. And that’s what results when stormwater flooding meets wastewater meets a thoroughfare. Both motorists and residents will benefit by a pump station that stays on line.
The city, to its credit, knows an ugly, iconically-challenged concrete box when it constructs one. For its part, it will paint and landscape it.
Then it should call it public art — and convert remaining detractors into philistines.