This time next year the Tampa countdown will be on in earnest for the 2012 GOP National Convention in late summer. Timing, we will be reminded, is everything.
And nothing says “Welcome to Tampa (and the Mega Swing State of Florida)” like one of the premier airports in the world, one with a convenient location and passenger comfort as foremost priority. Plus, next year’s TIA will feature $11.5 million in major upgrades at ticketing and baggage claim curbside areas. Lighting and aesthetics will also be improved.
In addition, we can expect local officials to be publicly re-thanking Tampa Bay Lightning owner Jeff Vinik for fronting the $35 million to spiff up the county-owned Times Forum. That’s where convention delegates will do more than gather. Look for that 11,000-square-foot outdoor party deck overlooking downtown to play well on television.
And let’s not forget about CAMLS. That’s USF Health’s 90,000-square-foot, $30 million Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation, which will be diagonally across the street from the Tampa Convention Center. And the Convention Center is where the national–and international–media will be based.
Expect all of the aforementioned to be noted by a media that can only write so much about a rubber-stamped nomination, Ybor City and Joe Redner. But expect TIA, the Forum and the state-of-the-art CAMLS to be well noted by delegates and–especially–corporate decision-makers.
So, what’s missing from this picture?
At a certain point, we’ll see cutaway TV network shots of delegates on streetcars. Then somebody will note that the entire line only runs 2.7 miles. Then somebody else will mention the failed transportation referendum of 2010 and whatever it is that Gov. Rick Scott has–or has not–done with the federal money allocated to build America’s first high-speed line between Orlando and Tampa.
But wait.
A couple of weeks later there’s another national political convention. The Democrats will meet in Charlotte.
Media can only write so much about an incumbent’s re-nomination, banks, a contemporary skyline, the NASCAR Hall of Fame and “sprawl-burbia.”
Rest assured we will be seeing more than cutaway shots of a few streetcars. We will be seeing Charlotte’s new economic engine: the Lynx Light Rail Line that debuted in December of 2007. You’ll also hear about cost overruns, federal and state funding, outperforming ridership projections, transit-oriented zoning, nine-figure, high-density development along rail routes–and a national model for success.
Charlotte’s banking industry was blind-sided by the financial crisis, and its textile industry won’t be exhumed. But it was prescient–and fortunate–enough to redefine itself as an emerging “green” metropolis.
For those of us viewing from Tampa, we will see an impressive convention city, although one that is the hub of a smaller metro market and without many of the amenities we take for granted, including being on water. We will also see our Sunbelt competition–fast-tracking after more than convention business.