TBO.com - Tampa Bay Online
One Year Out: Effect On The City
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Published: February 3, 2008
The Hotels
Tampa still can't compete with larger cities in the number of upscale hotel rooms.
The NFL has reserved about 20,000 rooms from St. Petersburg to Orlando to accommodate league and franchise officials, guests, the media, and participating teams.
Hillsborough County will provide the NFL with 7,800 of its 21,500 hotel rooms; Pinellas, 3,600 of its 30,500 rooms; and the Orlando area, 8,700 rooms out of more than 100,000 rooms available.
"We have less than 12,000 rooms blocked in Pinellas and Hillsborough, so we have lots of availability for the fans," said Norwood Smith, vice president of sales for Tampa
Bay & Co., Hillsborough's visitors bureau.
Local hotel managers will be prepared for the flurry of last-minute bookings as the two winning teams emerge from the playoffs.
"Between 35,000 to 45,000 visitors have made plans for the Super Bowl here in the past with about two weeks' notice," said Reid Sigmon, executive director of the host committee.
The City
Super Bowl 2009 will arrive before most of the city's new cultural and tourist attractions are ready. Rather than hanging out in a new waterfront park or viewing an exhibit at the new art museum, tourists mostly will see construction.
The new Curtis Hixon Park and Tampa Museum of Art won't be ready. The existing museum is slated for demolition this month, and the new museum isn't scheduled to open until late 2009.
And even the Malcolm Glazer family, owners of the Buccaneers, can't speed up construction on the Glazer Children's Museum. It is scheduled to open in late 2009.
"It's not a bad thing for people coming in for Super Bowl to see progress and construction," said Santiago Corrada, the city's neighborhood services administrator.
Seven segments of the Riverwalk are expected to be complete, including pieces at Cotanchobee Park and the Platt Street Bridge.
And if all goes as planned, the new Tampa Bay History Center will be open.
"Everybody involved recognizes the importance of being open at that point," said C.J. Roberts, the center's chief executive. "That's really a motivator."
The Roads
Two of the area's biggest road projects still will be under construction when the Super Bowl hits Tampa.
The Interstate 275 project from Himes Avenue to the Hillsborough River won't be finished until 2010. The good news is the Ashley Drive exit should be closed and reopened well before the Super Bowl. The Scott Street exit, however, likely will be closed, said John McShaffrey, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Transportation.
The five-year Tampa Airport Interchange Project also will remain under construction during the Super Bowl. The FDOT is looking at ways to accelerate some of the construction and eliminate lane closures during the week before the game.
"We don't want to do anything to deter event organizers from not coming back," McShaffrey said.
The city will develop a traffic plan, which could include detours and street closures.
Tampa residents might remember clogged streets downtown the weekend of the last Super Bowl.
Traffic is a problem in every community that hosts the game, said Steeg, the former Super Bowl organizer.
Tampa residents seem to dramatize the problem more than others, he said.
Steeg remembered driving around Tampa the Monday before the game and hearing a radio announcer complain about Super Bowl visitors clogging the roadways.
"There wasn't anybody here yet," he said. "In Tampa, it's almost mythological."
The Security
The biggest change for Super Bowl attendees and fans wanting to be close to the action will be the security perimeter around Raymond James Stadium, Sigmon said.
Tampa hosted the last Super Bowl before the Sept. 11 attacks, which resulted in dramatically beefed-up security at large sporting events.
Regular Super Bowl attendees won't notice a difference from recent years, but locals might be surprised by the checkpoints and pat-downs, Sigmon said. Blimps could be grounded on game day. At last year's Super Bowl in Miami, the Federal Aviation Administration allowed only aircraft from the military, law enforcement and hospitals within 10 miles of Dolphin Stadium.
In April, the Tampa Police Department began planning for the Super Bowl. The city will coordinate with other law enforcement agencies, including the sheriff's office and U.S. Coast Guard.
Tampa police Maj. John Bennett is determining how many officers will be needed. And the Tampa Sports Authority, which runs Raymond James Stadium, will hire several dozen paramedics to be stationed inside the facility.
Off-duty paramedics likely will be on hand at concerts, private parties and for the NFL Experience, an interactive attraction where fans can kick a field goal, play video games, get autographs and see what is billed as the largest football card show in the world.
The Stadium
The NFL gets all the profit from ticket sales, concessions and merchandise sales during the game. The league won't reveal revenue from the game, but filling a 70,000-seat stadium at this year's least-expensive ticket price of $700 would bring in $49 million. That doesn't include revenue from the 98 luxury suites in Raymond James Stadium the NFL will control for the game.
The league would make an additional $1.4 million if every attendee spends $20 on hot dogs, soda and beer.
The league requires 30,000 parking spaces at or near the stadium, but some of those are for the 1 million-square-foot NFL Experience.
The Tampa Sports Authority also turns over control of video boards and signage to the NFL. Only permanent advertising will remain in the stadium during the game.
Stadium workers will remove almost all things Buccaneer for the big day.
The 103-foot-long pirate ship replica, the stadium's most notable feature, could be used by television networks. Broadcasters took over the ship during the 2001 Super Bowl.
Workers will add about 7,500 seats to guarantee the stadium surpasses the NFL's requirement of 70,000 seats for the game.
In 2001, about 2,500 seats replaced the tiki hut and dock on the north end of the stadium, near the pirate ship. About 3,800 seats replaced picnic tables and palms over the south end zone.
Raymond James officials will have about 5,200 staff members on hand for concessions, tickets and security during the game, more than double the number for a regular home game.
The NFL will replace the Bucs' playing field with 100,000 square feet of new Bermuda grass, paid by the host community.
The league will use the roughly 100,000 square feet of undeveloped space in the stadium to build media rooms and areas for journalists to conduct interviews.
Super Bowl organizers expect 3,400 journalists to attend the game, including live broadcasts from networks such as ESPN, NBC and FOX Sports Net. In 2001, just ESPN had regular live broadcasts during the week.
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Posted by ( sbnsmo ) on February 3, 2008 at 8:27 p.m.
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