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It Takes A Village To Make Village

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 26, 2007

After going into late-night overtime the week before, the Tampa City Council finally gave its blessing - or at least its majority vote - to the rezoning plans of Wasserman Real Estate Capital to redevelop Hyde Park Village.

Despite the fuss, partisan controversy and divisiveness, there's a lot for most interested folks to agree on regarding the 10-acre Hyde Park Village and plans to help revitalize it.

• Hyde Park Village is not what it used to be. Selena's is still missed. Sharper Image won't be back. Jacobson's is gone forever. No more movie theater.

• Nostalgia is not a strategy for success.

• Wasserman's motives aren't altruistic. It wants what's best for Wasserman.

• Compromise has occurred.

• An open-air, urban village is for real shoppers, outdoor diners and imbibers, and serious strollers - not roving, mall-magnet teens. This is good. It's very good.

• Upscale residences near retail works. Europe has been doing it for centuries.

• To virtually all but Councilwoman Mary Mulhern, the status quo has become notably lusterless and unacceptable. Not vibrant enough and not nearly enough retail traffic. International Plaza, WestShore Plaza and Channelside Bay Plaza are more than formidable. Synergy with downtown visitors has never happened.

• Telltale signs of a prominent, midneighborhood retail loser is a worst-case scenario for every stakeholder - from shop owners to nearby homeowners.

• There is no pleasing everybody.

Even Wasserman should agree that shoehorning two midrises and 163 condominiums -along with improved curb appeal and more retail and business space - into the village is less than ideal. But the numbers on a $100 million investment have to work, and it's not as if the area is devoid of structures taller than 40 feet.

Holding out for the ideal in an imperfect marketplace has bequeathed us the Woolworth and Newberry plywood palaces downtown.

Some observations from the recent city council dynamics involving the village vote:

• Do not do important business after 1 a.m. Some members, notably Linda Saul-Sena, seemed frazzled by the endurance test a fortnight ago. This is no way to decide matters of magnitude.

• Those members who live farthest away - Joseph Caetano, Tom Scott, Gwen Miller and Charlie Miranda - favored the redevelopment plan.

• Although a lot of articulate, caring members of the public crowded into city hall to speak up, nobody made a more pointed comment than Kit Stewart, who owns Kit's Well Heeled & Well Dressed shop.

"There are more people in this room than there are shopping in Hyde Park Village," Stewart said.

Amen.

Off-Key Academics

In the aftermath of the academic scandal that has befallen Florida State University football players, two things are clear.

First, any time you let students, let alone student-athletes, take an exam online, you're courting trouble. Apparently an instructor giving the same music history test year after year wasn't sufficient help. What a travesty; the biggest academic sham since Deion Sanders pretended to be a student his senior year.

Second, FSU should be glad that Steve Spurrier's no longer at the University of Florida. We know how he turned the Foot Locker flap into "Free Shoes University." Imagine what he could do - and still might - with a team wracked by as many as 25 academic-fraud suspensions heading, ironically, to the Music City Bowl.

Stocking Stuffer

Within days of landing the 2008 and 2009 Atlantic Coast Conference Championship football games for Tampa, the Tampa Bay Sports Commission was still hustling.

The market niche: stocking stuffers for that special someone who can't get enough college football and is into deferred gratification. The commission offered tickets online in a One Day (Dec. 21) Last Minute Shopper Holiday Sale.

Joe O'Neill is a South Tampa writer who can be contacted at www.OpinionsToGoOnLine.com.

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