Category: Tampa Bay

Obviously she meant it.

Mayor Pam Iorio had told Tampa Museum of Art officials to meet a very rigid standard of financial accountability before she would sign off on the new one. They didn’t, and she didn’t have to.

Let’s forsake the recriminations – including a smaller museum for the original cost — and pass on the subplots and agendas as well. All involved want the same end: what’s best for Tampa – from a vibrant arts environment to downtown synergy. Speculation on future economic cycles and interest-rate roulette is just that: speculation.

This much, however, needs underscoring.

*TMA’s leadership is a problem. The city deserved better than a long-running potboiler masquerading as a first-class capital campaign. Lots of doors went unknocked.

*A woefully inadequate incumbent facility still mocks the spirit of a “new millennium city.”

*Tampa also deserved better than Rafael Vinoly’s signature homage to car ports. He was to Dick Greco what Wilson Alvarez was to Vince Naimoli. Neither delivered; both cost too much; and the costs kept mounting in their wakes.

One can only wonder what a better design, one that galvanized – not polarized – a community from the get-go, would have yielded. In all likelihood, not this.

But put it this way – as the mayor recently did:

“We will have a new arts museum for Tampa,” Iorio told the gathering at her ‘State of the City’ presentation. “It will happen.

“When one idea falters, it should not be seen as a loss, but as a time for rebirth of new ideas – as a time for opportunity.”

In a speech otherwise suffused with prosaic passages, this was as close to soaring rhetoric as the mayor’s presentation would get.

But given the mayor’s track record on this issue, she gets the benefit of the doubt.

Obviously she meant it.

To some cities and regions it will be an extreme makeover they could do without, thank you. They are the myriad communities across America now sweating out the prospect of losing a key military installation.

There are 425 military bases across the United States – but not for long. The upcoming round of military base closings will reduce that total. Also reduced: the hefty economic impact on a number of local economies.

Florida currently has 21 military installations – from the Panhandle to Miami. They account for more than 700,000 employees and an estimated $44 billion in economic impact – behind only tourism and agriculture.

Locally, we’re talking MacDill Air Force Base, home to U.S. Central Command and U.S. Special Operations Command as well as the 6th Air Mobility Wing, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s aircraft operations center, the Joint Communications Support Element (JCSE) and more. It employs about 7,000 civilian and military personnel and is worth some $6.5 billion annually to the local economy, according to the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce.

On May 16, when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld submits his recommendations to the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission, one or more of those Florida bases could very well be targeted. In fact, given the Pentagon’s charge to cut 25 per cent of infrastructure — most of it integral to a Cold War network – it’s not likely Florida will dodge all the closure bullets.

These are anxious times as the Pentagon looks to expedite a leaner and more agile military largely through scenarios of consolidation.

Gov. Jeb Bush has had a pricey, high-powered consultant team, which includes former Defense Secretary William Cohen and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, on the case. He also has a base closure advisory council of influential Floridians. It’s co-chaired by retired Air Force General J.B. Davis of Palm Harbor and includes USF President Judy Genshaft and Tampa businessman and Republican Party icon Al Austin.

The strategy, says Austin, is different than it was for previous rounds (1988, ’91, ’93 and ’95) of closures.

“In past years, each community was pretty much on its own and competing against each other,” says Austin. “Now we look at all 21 bases without a favorite. We will defend whichever one gets on it. We hope only one. It could be more. We will all fight whatever bases may be on that list. The fact of the matter is all 67 counties derive some benefit from the military.”

Austin says that the findings resulting from two years of exhaustive scrutiny by Pentagon analysts have been notably absent of leaks. “They’re really playing it close to the vest,” he notes. “They keep saying that this one will have little input from politicians. And remember the president (by Nov. 7) has to accept or reject the whole thing. I think Rumsfeld will lean on his experts rather than outside influences.”

However it shakes out, says Austin, the die is largely cast. It’s now a matter of watchful waiting – and probably hoping that U.S. Rep. Bill Young can still make enough of a difference one more time.

“We’re in this time frame where we have to wait for the shoe to drop,” he explains. “You can’t lobby them. We think we’re as well prepared as we can be. We’ve laid the groundwork with 100 per cent support from the Congressional delegation and our two senators, and the governor is really tuned in. Our hope is that only one base is on it, and then it’s up to us to prove they made a mistake.”

For the record, previous BRAC commissions have endorsed 85 per cent of the Pentagon’s recommendations.

It’s also a matter of “trying to keep a positive spin going,” adds Austin, who makes no secret of his disappointment with the recent comments of former Congressman Sam Gibbons that Tampa needs to get real and prepare for life after MacDill.

“Gibbons still has stature,” points out Austin. “Saying something like that can make them wonder if they missed something. It can raise red flags. The point is the timing was bad. We need to stay extremely cautious – and not do anything to rock the boat.

“You have to assume that MacDill is in good shape,” stresses Austin, who cites the nearly half billion dollars in infrastructure improvements – including an intelligence center for CentCom — currently under way at MacDill. Its more recent amenities include a new control tower and a 12,000-foot runway.

“Sure, they look at that,” he underscores. “And they look at what it would cost to close it.

“In the past, politics played too strong a role,” acknowledges Austin. “Today it’s all about duplication of services all over the system. Our hope is they can see MacDill as a perfect place to add components. Realignment for more planes is certainly a hope.”

The bottom line is that everybody is vulnerable, and there are no guarantees. MacDill, for example, could be considered squeezed by some residential development. But MacDill, with its infrastructure investments and two unified commands, is – as a key national security component — in better shape than most.

And that, hopefully, is more than positive spin.

At its Fogarty-forever seediest, Tampa’s hardscrabble maritime district was still home to an eclectic handful of urban pioneers – mostly of the artistic persuasion.

When it became apparent that this warehouse – now Channel — district was morphing into a tony, de facto downtown where people – thousands of them – would actually live, some key questions were begged. Could the resultant condo enclave, dotted with lofts and town homes, remain reasonably scaled? Could some sense of community be retained – or forged? And what of the artists? Should they wait for Godot or Soho?

Plans for the (two 30-story) Towers of Channelside and (two 41-story towers of) Pinnacle Place are reminders, notably the former, of controversy and pragmatic compromise.

Plans of a residential developer to set aside prime space for artistic use is another reminder. In this case – it bespeaks of an encouraging community scenario born of pragmatism, creativity and enlightened self interest.

Next month developer Ken Stoltenberg’s 392-unit condominium, Grand Central at Kennedy, will break ground on 12-story and 15-story buildings in the Channel District. According to Stoltenberg, he has firm contracts on at least 340 pre-sold units at Channelside Drive and Kennedy Boulevard. The price range is $140,000 to $599,000.

But those aren’t the numbers drawing the biggest attention right now.

Stoltenberg, a co-equity partner in Mercury Advisors (with Luxembourg-based Frank Bombeeck), already has set aside some 4,500 square feet of space for Stageworks Theater Company plus another 2,000 for a visual arts gallery to be managed by Artists Unlimited. Stageworks, seen by many as a community catalyst, has a 20-year lease and a 20-year option.

The gratis space was the creative upshot of input from the Channel District Council and give-and-take that ensued from the city’s rezoning-approval process on height restrictions.

Stageworks well

“We looked around,” recalled Stoltenberg, “and Stageworks worked best for us. It had a lot of performances. That can help all the retail and restaurants. It will create footsteps. We put this in our numbers from day one. We just assumed a contribution loss leader.”

From the perspective of the city’s creative industries manager, Paul Wilborn, this is a seminal event for the arts as well as the fast-forwarding Channel District.

“This is both very generous – and very smart,” assesses Wilborn. “Developers in other cities have realized the value of the arts in promoting their properties. Ken gets that.

“What he is adding are amenities for his potential buyers,” Wilborn says. “He sees it. It’s part of his selling package. I give him tons of credit.”

Wilborn also accords him kudos for the lease arrangement.

“In order to apply for arts grants, you have to show at least a 20-year lease,” points out Wilborn. “That’s a real philanthropic move.”

According to Wilborn, “This can only help the Channel District, which has been sort of an artistic neighborhood. I mean Victory Lofts was referencing (artist) Jeff Whipple as an amenity.”

For Stageworks, the regional, not-for-profit, professional theater company that has been producing exclusively for the Tampa Bay region since its founding 22 years ago, Stoltenberg’s variation on an enlightened self-interest theme will be a godsend. For all its well-earned reputation – from staging classics and contemporary plays, including world premieres, to performing for public school students and indigent seniors – Stageworks has never had a permanent home.

Its itinerant history includes performance stints at the University of Tampa’s Falk Theater, Hillsborough Community College (Ybor City), the Italian Club, the Gorilla Theater and the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. Finding rehearsal space has been an ongoing, ad hoc adventure.

Anna Brennen, the outspoken founder and producing director of Stageworks, minces no words about the fallout from Stoltenberg’s commitment.

“Bless his angelic heart,” says Brennen. “What he has given us legitimizes our existence. He has given us a place we can be identified with – instead of ‘Where are they now?’ Our audience has a hard time following us around.”

The implications for the Channel District, per se, are no less dramatic, says Brennen, known as “drama mama” in theater circles.

“To be able to build an ensemble with playwrights

This much should seem abundantly evident by now. School-choice “attractors” – and there are 51 of them in Hillsborough County — don’t work. And the reason is no less manifest. They aren’t attractive given the alternative, which are neighborhood schools better suited to parental input and community involvement — and also happen to require a lot less busing.

School officials – running scared that they may be accused of enabling “resegregation” — should quit trying to make attractors more attractive and concentrate on making neighborhood schools more acceptable – and equitable.

Let’s worry less about revisiting “Plessy vs. Ferguson” and its sophistic implications in 2005 and more about the sort of equal opportunity that can be afforded by comparable facilities, textbooks, teachers and curricula in our neighborhood schools.

It also means schools in high-poverty areas aren’t top heavy with portable classrooms and shortchanged on tutors, computer access and even custodians. That’s the real problem – one that can never be solved by school-choice schemes and attractor doubletalk.

Then the onus will be where it belongs: on parents. That’s the key educational variable, one that no social engineering can dictate.

Here’s hoping the Tampa Museum of Art, now in the 11th hour of its financial crucible, has finally gotten the religion of reality and gone aggressively after some of the deep-pocketed residential developers currently engaged in the downtown/Channelside makeover.

We’re not talking altruism here, although that should never be discouraged. Nor are we talking pure art for art’s sake, as uplifting as that always is. We’re talking old-fashioned, enlightened self interest.

It’s a lot easier to sell seven-figure condo units and even ritzier penthouses when the neighborhood is a viable cultural arts district. And that doesn’t happen without a world-class art museum as an anchor.

It still amazes that no one actually asked Donald Trump to ante up for the symbiotic cause. Had they, The Donald’s unsolicited donation might have been more than $100,000 in installments.

Like anyone else who cares about the viability of downtown, I’m all for a major residential infusion, especially the affordable, workforce type. But at the risk of sounding less than hip or borderline edgy, aren’t some “loft” exterior designs more like dormitory lite?

In fact, a lot of dormitories don’t even look like that any more. Been out to USF recently?

The Tampa Sports Authority is very much in the news these days. Make that the cross-hairs – courtesy of rookie Hillsborough County Commissioner Brian Blair, who has called out the TSA on its relevance and efficiency. And has even called for its abolition.

Whatever the ultimate scenario, it’s a valid issue.

Some context.

When the (11-member) TSA was created as an independent special district in 1965 by the Florida Legislature, its charge was to jumpstart a football stadium. Initially, it would be the home of the University of Tampa Spartans.

More to the point, a big time stadium was the necessary means to the successful end of attracting an NFL franchise – the one that became the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who debuted in 1976. A series of pre-season NFL games had paved the way. In 1998 the TSA would replace Tampa Stadium with the state-of-the-art Raymond James Stadium.

At its inception, the TSA, which is not self-sustaining, received annual payments of $60,000 and $30,000 from the city and county, respectively – as required by the establishing legislation. (Today those sums are $600,000 and $1.3 million, respectively, as supplements to $18.7 million from sales tax; $8 million from stadium operations; $3.6 million in golf revenue; and $1.8 million in interest from bond funds. What’s paid out goes largely to RayJay bond debt ($18.7 million), stadium ($10 million) operations and golf ($3.6 million) operations.) Additionally, the TSA was granted deed-holding powers by the Legislature.

Along the way, the TSA also was charged with developing other sports facilities and playing a lead role in wooing additional pro franchises, equestrian events, bowl games and even Super Bowls to a city that was hardly a household name in the world of sports.

The Rowdies, Mutiny and Bandits came and went – but helped ratchet up the city’s national profile. The American and Hall of Fame Bowls morphed into the highly successful Outback Bowl. Legends Field and the Times Forum came on line, and the spring-training New York Yankees and the Stanley Cup-winning Tampa Bay Lightning became integral parts of the bay area sports-and-entertainment synergy.

New reality

But that was then, and this is now.

Tampa is the hub of a major sports market. The heaviest lifting is over.

Moreover, Hillsborough County now owns the property for Legends Field, the Times Forum and most of RayJay. The TSA operates and maintains three municipal golf courses and RayJay. (The TSA also retains ownership of the portions of the stadium – such as the luxury boxes and ticket offices – occupied by the Bucs.)

So the question – and it seems rhetorical – is: Given all the changes in the TSA’s mission and responsibilities since 1965, why shouldn’t it submit to a major reappraisal and possible – even probable – overhaul? Or more?

The game has changed since Tampa needed an independent public agency to put the undersized Florida city that wasn’t Miami or Disney-Orlando on the national map by targeting sports as an industry. Loyalty born of nostalgia mustn’t be confused with reduced relevance today.

Interestingly enough, among those who wouldn’t disagree with the aforementioned, non-rhetorical query – or its premise – is David Mechanik. He’s the current chairman of the TSA and a board member since 1997.

At a recent appearance at the Tiger Bay Club of Tampa, Mechanik — while taking issue with “mismanagement” characterizations and presumptive financial savings — agreed that it’s “not unfair” to pose the re-evaluation question. “We’re open to that,” he said.

“But before we change something,” he underscored, “let’s look at the alternatives.”

In other words: Do we really want the county to run something else?

And the county, ironically, is the crux of the issue.

The TSA arguably doesn’t have enough to do. It competently manages RayJay; maintains the best turf in the NFL as well as three golf courses; and is a key player in pitching the NFL for the 2009 Super Bowl. It does important, community-enhancing, sport-specific work — but not enough of it. And it’s fair to ask why TSA Executive Director Henry Saavedra should make nearly as much ($185,723) as County Administrator Pat Bean ($191,880), who, among other things, has to put up with the county commission.

The problem is the messenger. Being criticized by the Board of County Commissioners – with a grandstanding Brian Blair as point man – is like being taken to task by Chuck Roast. To many, the commission itself is still synonymous with dysfunction. Former wrestler and erstwhile “Killer Bee” Blair has all the gravitas of Aunt Bea.

And yet the message – the need for a long overdue, major reappraisal of the TSA with everything on the table — is on point. Scrutinizing oversight can no longer be overlooked.

And David Mechanik, one suspects, knows it.

Even if the Hillsborough County Commission should vote to drastically alter or raze the Tampa Sports Authority, the final decision rests with lawmakers in Tallahassee. So don’t look for an extreme makeover just yet.

However, there could be movement on a related front. The TSA has been taking ethical and PR heat over its policy of accepting free skybox tickets and meals for its members and dispensing additional freebies to selected public officials.

“I’m not going to totally defend that practice,” said TSA Chairman David Mechanik, who added that there was “no current written policy.” He also noted that “Staff are now working on it.

“We could do a better job of benefiting the community at large,” he conceded.

I knew Evelyn Greco for the last of her 98 years. Would that it had been more.

I’m always fascinated by folks who have lived so much of the history we take for granted. I can only imagine Ybor City in the Roaring ’20s, the Depression and World War II. But she lived it. And upon request, didn’t mind reliving it.

The lives of the Evelyn Grecos are windows into a world – and society – long since past. When neighbors meant more than residential proximity. We need reminding.

Mrs. Greco wasn’t there at Creation; it just seemed that way. And she was still sharp at the end – still reading in Spanish, Italian and English, still reveling in grandchildren and great grandchildren.

And still keeping her kid – who’s a grandfather — in line. That would be former four-time Mayor Dick Greco. The relationship never ceased to amuse.

Till virtually the very end, Mrs. Greco would call her 70-something son to remind him “to be careful with your driving.” Which was typically the prelude to “Call me when you get home.” And for good measure: “You seem to be putting on some weight.”

When pressed about what made her proudest about her only child’s success, she couldn’t have been more old school.

“I don’t follow all that city business,” she admitted. “But what means most to me is that he was a nice, polite boy who worked hard – and never changed.”

Safety Harbor is a sleepy, village-like community nestled along Tampa Bay in eastern Pinellas County. It could be the poster burg for quaint. Its downtown is a mix of small shops, waterfront vistas and the landmark Safety Harbor Resort & Spa.

Look for that to change.

Sometime this spring Olympia Development Group will break ground – at the corner of Main Street and Bayshore Drive — on an upscale, mixed-use project that has raised lots of expectations for a downtown renaissance. Dunedin-based Olympia will develop Harbour Pointe: 45 condominiums, eight town homes and 45,000 square feet of retail and office on 3.3 acres.

The condos -in two 4-story buildings –will overlook the bay and a marina. Prices will start at $500,000. Construction is slated to begin by the end of the second quarter.The Shoppes at Harbour Pointe – consisting of a 2- and 3-story building – will feature a European village ambience. Construction should start by the end of the first quarter.

Moreover, Olympia recently bought the Spa property, which sits across the street from Harbour Pointe on 30 acres, from Arlington, Va.-based MeriStar Hospitality Co. According to MeriStar, the purchase price was in excess of $20 million. Olympia has ambitious plans for upgrading the 189-room resort plus major mixed-use development. The scenario – in a 5-to-7-year build out – could include more than 300 condos, retail, and a 300-room hotel.

“Harbour Pointe is important for our downtown,” emphasizes Ron Pianta, Safety Harbor’s assistant city manager and community development director. “Olympia has been very cooperative in working with us and making adjustments to the development order. This is a very sensitive project.

“And now they’ve purchased the Spa,” adds Pianta. “Obviously they have an affinity for the community and are in it for the long haul. They’re local, and they’re investing in the community.”

From Olympia’s perspective, giving downtown Safety Harbor a major makeover represents the culmination of a market evolution for the 14-year-old company. Its stock in trade had been commercial development – including more than 75 free-standing Walgreens throughout the Southeast.

“We’ve done enough of that kind of work to economically allow us to do other things,” explains Eddie Entreken, Olympia’s vice president/project development. “Mixed-use development is very popular. Our owner is an architect, and this is a project that excites him – and us as a company.”

That owner is 68-year-old William Touloumis, an immigrant Horatio Alger from Greece.

“We wanted to diversify, and this is a good vehicle for that,” underscores Touloumis, whose hands-on design work will be very much in evidence at Harbour Pointe. “We are creating an urban environment with resort-style amenities and restoring a pedestrian marketplace to downtown. We are also making a statement. For many generations people will benefit. I’ve always said, ‘If a job is done well and properly, the profit is a by-product.'”

To date, good will with local officials has been the by-product of Olympia’s two-year effort to seek input – including focus groups – from the community and to establish solid rapport with the chamber of commerce. Olympia is now viewed as vested.

And it hardly hurt that Olympia anted up for a restaurant and a community events-oriented plaza to sweeten the deal.

“We see this as a true partnership,” says Safety Harbor commissioner Nadine Nickeson. “It benefits them, and we wanted a draw downtown for our residents and those who drive through. This is not overwhelming – but a good fit. It’s all coming to fruition.”