Category: Tampa Bay

The Tampa Bay History Center held its formal ground breaking last week. Its impact was much more than the sum of its parts: from construction pilings already out of the ground, poet laureate James Tokley at the ready and Cuban sandwiches from the Columbia Restaurant to cherubic, performing children, glad-handing politicos and beaming, History Center movers and shakers.

It was the final step for a project this region, so often mired in petty parochialism and political in-fighting, really needs. Arguably, more than any other kind of museum. One that will graphically and interactively remind us all what we have in common – not in conflict. Before there was a Jamestown or a Plymouth landing, there were Panfilo de Narvaez and Hernando de Soto exploring parts of present-day Pinellas and Hillsborough counties.

Take a well-deserved bow, Tom Touchton. He’s the former History Center Board Chairman who presided over much of the $52-million project’s challenging, 20-year gestation.

When the 60,000-square-foot center opens — and the target date is December 2008 — it will have made history, not just preserved, packaged and presented it. We’re talking 2.4 acres of land from the city of Tampa and funding from Hillsborough County and the private sector. We’re talking the sort of collaborative effort too rarely seen around here on anything.

And we’re also talking about a high-profile Florida building that gives more than lip service to the environment. Because of its serious inclusion of green elements in the design process, the History Center is pursuing the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification from the United States Green Building Council.

The new Tampa Bay History Center: truly historic.

However it all shakes out in the ongoing controversy about shoehorning 163 condos and townhomes into Hyde Park Village, this much seems certain. Nobody should expect Wasserman Real Estate Capital, the owner-developer, to drastically alter its mid-rise tower plans in its upcoming presentation to Tampa City Council.

Apparently the game plan is pure public relations at this point. Send out a warm fuzzy-gram to neighborhood residents reminding them that Wasserman is making sure “all designs embrace the warmth and charm of the Hyde Park neighborhood and meet the design guidelines of the historic district.” Also remind them that “the ARC (Architectural Review Commission) did not accept its own staff’s recommendations (last month); instead the ARC decided not to recommend our project to the Tampa City Council.”

And then hire the high-powered law firm of Holland & Knight to help assuage scale-and-mass concerns among the neighbors. And not just any H&Kers.

Now soft-selling for Wasserman: two favorite political sons of Tampa, former Tampa Mayor and Florida Governor Bob Martinez and former U.S. Representative and gubernatorial candidate Jim Davis.

Likely result: Won’t matter. Big names can’t lower what’s too tall and too massive.

Later this month Hillsborough Circuit Judge Monica Sierra will leave for three months in the Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank. Her commitment to doing her part by traveling to a dangerous part of the world – to help make some lives better – is admirable. In the abstract.

Were she only taking food and humane intentions it would be unequivocally praiseworthy. But she’s also taking Bibles, under the aegis of the Living Bread International Church.

In an area historically wracked by sectarian violence and in a world too fraught with fundamentalist cherry picking of holy books, is now — if any — the time for proselytizing among the Palestinians?

And isn’t it more than ill-timed and unwise? Isn’t it also arrogant?

The $93-million Heritage Square at the Armory project, which seeks to convert the Fort Homer Hesterly Armory property into a mix that includes a hotel, restaurants, cafes, a museum and a day spa, continues to move agonizingly through the tedious land-use and zoning process. The other storyline is this: When the process is over, ironically, it still won’t be the best use for that 10-acre site on North Howard near Interstate 275.

Recall that Armory Partners Group of Tampa wanted to build a video, film and sound studio and develop creative arts businesses, which made much more sense given this city’s chronic need to beef up its allure to the movie/video production industry. The APG scenario also included apartments, retail and a grocery store — pragmatic neighborhood complements all.

But a hotel? A day spa? Wrong approach. Wrong neighborhood.

In the era of “Build It And They Will Come,” how progressive has the liaison been between Grand Central at Kennedy and the Stageworks theater company. Starting next season Stageworks will be housed permanently in a 99-seat black box theater within Grand Central. Call it enlightened self-interest for Grand Central condo developer Ken Stoltenberg, who knows that such an arts amenity is a better Channel District sales inducement than the prospect of a dry cleaner taking retail space.

And while we’re tossing bouquets, let’s include a bravo for Stageworks, which has earned its good fortune. And it’s more than first-class stage productions. It’s often been saluted for its community involvement via its outreach programs for at-risk children. And that’s a big reason why Stageworks, now in its 25th anniversary season, was chosen as Bank of America’s Hillsborough County 2007 Neighborhood Builder. The award comes with a check for $200,000 for operational support.

The recent flap over a proposed name change of the MOSI Partnership school has reinforced, once again, the dicey task of school naming. In the good name of wanting to honor the honorable — for example, Mayor Pam Iorio’s late father, the beloved John Iorio — we perpetuate a ritual too subjective to be consistently appropriate and uncontroversial.

Except for that limited, elite American pantheon of heroes and high achievers, we’re much better off going geographical or, as in the case of MOSI, making allowances for a school’s special designation. This would avoid needless controversy and would help instill some sense of community in schools too often lacking in identity.

Unlike a rose, a school by any other name wouldn’t be the same. To be sure, we all know that what goes on in a school matters much more than what name it goes by. But that doesn’t mean the name is incidental – especially to those who go there or send their children there. Marcus Garvey or Steve Garvey Elementary? Harry or Truman Capote Middle School? Stonewall or Jackson Pollock High School? Jim Davis or Miles Davis Magnet? You bet it matters.

Reality dictates that image and connotation count, along with old-fashioned politics, new-fashioned political correctness and even raw snob appeal. Would Tommy Franks Voc Tech be as attractive — or acceptable — today as it was six years ago? Would it matter if your diploma read: “Sharpton,” “Schwarzkopf” or “Shabazz” High School? You bet it would.

The fundamental problem is two-fold when we name schools after people. For openers, we have many more schools than we have consensus American icons. And the disparity only widens. No problem with the Washingtons, Franklins, Jeffersons, Carvers, Lincolns, Edisons and Roosevelts. But all too quickly we run out of such first-tier names. That gives us a Newsome, a Sickles or a Wharton. Good people who did yeoman work becomes the criteria.

Inherently problematic are scenarios for naming schools after the living: typically local politicians, school board members and business leaders. Not only are they not likely of iconic quality, but the unwritten chapters of their lives can prove awkward for posterity. Sort of the pedagogic equivalent of the Houston Astros’ erstwhile Enron Field. Joe Kotvas Alternative School would have been embarrassing. A Brian Blair Junior High could still happen.

Remember why J. Crockett Farnell High School became Freedom High? Because too many parents took umbrage at having their kids’ school named for the late superintendent who was forced to resign in the 1960s after being convicted of stealing school district property.

Eventually Farnell’s backers re-petitioned and requested a lower-profile middle school in Nine Eagles be named in his honor. The school district acquiesced when it was noted that Farnell’s conviction was eventually overturned on appeal. Now there’s a standard.

To avoid ugly controversies or just awkward, competing petition drives on behalf of good people, we should look to geography wherever we can. Hillsborough High, Turkey Creek Middle School and Ballast Point Elementary work just fine, thank you.

And at a time when the quaint concept of “neighborhood schools” is re-rooting – despite protests from the usual suspects that this is “resegregation” – why not max out on a local community’s identity?

The Architectural Review Commission, as we know, can easily morph into the Door Knocker Nazis in their self-important interpretation of what’s appropriate for designated historic areas. But among those in the know, few are disagreeing with the ARC’s approach to proposals for redevelopment of Hyde Park Village.

The ARC has now twice rejected plans by Village owner Wasserman Realty Capital to shoehorn a pair of residential towers into the retail mix. Too big and too crowded, say most residents and Hyde Park Preservation Inc.

Wasserman has incrementally been whittling down the height and mass of its proposed condo structures. A few feet here, a story there. A sop to critics.

It’s not been nearly enough, and most neighbors, HPPI and the ARC aren’t buying it.

Maybe the best advice for Wasserman is this: You’ve done your homework, and you knew what you were dealing with before you bought in. And even your biggest critics realize that status quo won’t succeed in the marketplace the Village competes in. But surely you have an ultimate, Plan C position that you’ve been hoping to better. Well, you won’t.

Put it on the table now.

*Hillsborough County Commissioners have no right to bristle over references to their well-earned “dysfunctional” and “yahoo” reputations. Most recent example: Ousting Commissioner Rose Ferlita from her seat on the Tampa Port Authority and replacing her – by an outrageous 5-2 vote – with Brian Blair. If anyone should “apologize,” it should be those five – or everybody but Ferlita and Mark Sharpe.

Ferlita, a former Tampa City Council member, is smart and familiar with port issues. Blair is neither. The port is also in Ferlita’s district.

The port, for those commissioners who need reminding — or minding — is very, very important to this region — from economic as well as security standpoints. Much too important for the obtuse likes of Blair, whose credentials include being a ham-handed, inarticulate chairman of the county’s Environmental Protection Commission.

Couldn’t Blair have been, say, permanent chaplain? That way he could formally thank God every week for having been elected to something.

* May cooler heads yet prevail on Tampa City Council. The flap over who speaks for Tampa, a city with a classic strong-mayor form of government, is petty, ego-driven and unworthy of either council or the mayor.

Best bet: Let Charlie Miranda mediate. He’s got just the right qualifications on this one: old-school smarts — and no longer wants to be mayor.

There are a lot of well-chronicled reasons to go to Tampa Theatre. I found two more over a recent weekend.

One was to escape football. The agony of defeated USF, UF and Penn State had taken its toll, and I had a premonition about the Bucs gift-wrapping another opponent’s victory.

The other was to catch the Rosa Rio show.

She’s the 105-year-old Wurlitzer icon, who still performs before and during Tampa Theatre’s periodic showings of silent films. Most recently it was the Sunday matinee featuring that hauntingly creepy, 1922 classic, Nosferatu , the first screen version of Dracula.

Nearly 900 showed.

“Rosa is a rock star,” explained Tara Schroeder, Tampa Theatre’s programming director. “She has her groupies. They wait for her in the lobby afterwards. They want her autograph and they buy her CDs.”

The audience was an eclectic mix. From high school students curious about silent films and a legendary centurion to Sun City Center seniors coming to see one of their own. Although “senior” can seem a bit too junior for a 105-year-old. For one who played her first silent-film gig during the Howard Taft administration. Aunt Tiquary, anyone?

Given that this was the Sunday before Halloween, Rosa’s entrance was thematic. After her skeleton-bedecked Wurlitzer had slowly and eerily ascended amid plumes of smoke, she arrived separately – in a coffin.

Macabre? More like incongruous.

After doffing her red cape and hood, Rosa revealed a stage presence that was spunky and funny. She knows her way around a one-liner and can obviously work a house. Her voice was strong yet genteel; her New Orleans’ roots still apparent. She played “The Funeral March of the Marionettes” (still “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” to me) with gusto. Then she inimitably implored the audience to participate in Nosferatu .

“Feel free to applaud or hiss,” she instructed, “but don’t drown out the music.”

She settled in at the Wurlitzer — at orchestra-pit level, so she could see the movie as well as the music. And for a guy on the lam from all things gridiron, Tampa Theatre was once again a transporting experience. It was another era, another art form. One where the accompanist deserved her top billing. One where the experience was anything but silent.

At the conclusion, a beaming Rosa was accorded a standing ovation and presented with a bouquet of red roses.

“She’s a very positive person, and she loves what she does,” says Schroeder. “She is passionate about it. Her life is fulfilled if she can share her gift. We all just love her.”

Time was when a societal reference to “green” mainly meant hard-core, environmental activism. It conjured up the Sierra Club, pricey solar panels and visceral opposition to the pave-over-paradise crowd. And it connoted trade-offs: What’s the economic downside to tree-hugging naiveté?

That time has long passed, says Portland, Ore., economist Joe Cortright. He’s the author of “Portland’s Green Dividend,” a study that extols the benefits of smart transportation and land-planning policies.

In a telephone interview before his recent “smart-growth planning” address to a Tampa business luncheon, Cortright gave green a more contemporary context.

“The rhetoric around green has been one of ‘noble self-sacrifice,'” said Cortright. “Noble, but not economic. People foregoing consumption and giving up stuff to better the environment. The hair shirt environmentalists, if you will.

“But we’ve come to realize,” he emphasized, “that green wasn’t just a good idea. It was also good business.”

And Portland, of course, could be Exhibit A. To liberally paraphrase Gordon Gecko: “Green is good in Portland.”

“We haven’t achieved Nirvana, but a base-level of agreement on priorities,” noted Cortright. In effect, the combination of mass transit and anti-sprawl land-planning have saved Portland money and fashioned its progressive identity.

According to Cortright, Portlanders are experiencing more than $2.5 billion annually in green dividends, which is money that gets re-invested in the local economy. These savings derive from a steady reduction in vehicle miles traveled per person. In the Portland region, the cost now averages $20 per person per day; $24 is the national average. Houston, for example, is $40. The Tampa Bay region is $28. And with oil ratcheting toward $100 a barrel, the dividends should grow commensurately.

Cortright’s message to locals is encouraging – and blunt.

Tampa Bay, he acknowledged, is not Portland and reflects newer housing patterns and much more sprawl. Having said that, Cortright underscored that making major inroads in smart growth is “definitely doable.”

“There is stuff you can do short-term,” he explained, “such as where you choose to live (i.e. the urban cores) and how you encourage mixed-use development and afford opportunities for people to live closer to where they work. Employers can encourage telecommuting. And in the longer term, there’s transit. All of this moves you in the right direction.”

On the other hand, what if politics and parochialism continue their short-sighted impact and the Tampa Bay region never gets the religion of smart transportation and land-planning policies?

“Well, you’ll pay the price,” warned Cortright.