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Council Should Affirm Bold Bid To Redevelop Hyde Park Village

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 11, 2007

Back in its heyday, Hyde Park Village was the upscale place in Tampa to live, shop and dine. But today the mixed-use development is struggling. To restore its vitality, something's got to give.

The owners, Wasserman Real Estate Capital, want to remodel portions of the village and add 163 new residences in two condominium buildings that would reach up to nine stories tall in some places. The plans have been rejected by the Architectural Review Commission three times for being incompatible with historic Hyde Park. On Thursday, the Tampa City Council will weigh in.

The council should approve the proposal. The developer has listened and compromised on residents' concerns - shrinking the number of residential units by about a third. Most importantly, the project's mix could help restore Hyde Park Village.

In casting this vote, council members also will define themselves on a key community tension: whether to allow increased density in some urban areas so that Tampa's land-use decisions support mass transit.

Council members seem to support the idea of mass transit, including a light-rail option, but they regularly back down when neighborhood associations raise objections to projects that add residents. Some neighborhood projects should be rejected, no doubt, but this proposal fronts commercial thoroughfares.

To remain viable, Hyde Park Village must re-create an atmosphere that attracts - and retains - new businesses and customers. Too often, shoppers arrive at the outdoor center only to find their favorite stores have closed. Lacking certainty about the district's revolving door of businesses, patrons often head to the malls instead.

The developer wants to add more than 12,000 square feet of retail and office space to the Swann Avenue site that once housed a movie theater, and increase by nearly 7,000 square feet the retail and office space on the block that once housed the old Brooks Brothers and Ann Taylor stores. It also wants to reconfigure pedestrian areas and add public art.

More than retail growth, the neighborhood association objects to the condos.

The plan calls for constructing a condominium tower on the old movie theater site, designed in graduated fashion to better fit the neighborhood's character. A gorgeous upscale project of similar size - the Valencia - is just around the corner and has hardly harmed the neighborhood's charm.

A second residential tower on the old Brooks Brothers site is the plan's most contentious component. Yet only about 4 percent of the building would reach 80 feet high, and an undulating roof scape would soften neighboring views. More than one-third of the block would be fronted by three-story-tall buildings, as in other parts of the village.

Wasserman is a reputable developer whose leaders are recognized as preservationists and art lovers. The firm has demonstrated its ability to handle historically significant properties with its work on an iconic hotel near Scotland's famed St. Andrews golf course.

The proposal may worry some neighborhood activists, but so did the original plan to create Hyde Park Village more than 20 years ago.

Enough with the roadblocks. Tampa City Council should endorse this plan and help restore vitality to an important urban center.

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