Commissioners: Use Floriland Mall as homeless shelter

Two county commissioners who voted against a plan to build a homeless shelter at Hillsborough Avenue and Harney Road, now say Floriland Office Center in north Tampa would be a good shelter site.

Commissioners Al Higginbotham and Kevin White each put items on the agenda for Wednesday's commission meeting to discuss converting office space into temporary housing for the homeless at the former shopping center on Florida Avenue near Busch Boulevard.

The commissioners say they did not talk to each other about using the site that formerly housed a satellite office for the Clerk of Circuit Court.

"So you have two commissioners thinking along the same path and that's a good thing," Higginbotham said.

Both men say they got the idea after commissioners learned two weeks ago that the county had to pay $592,000 to break the lease for the clerk's satellite office. The office gave county residents an alternative location to pay traffic tickets rather than coming downtown. But state budget cuts forced Circuit Court Clerk Pat Frank to close the office.

"I'd much rather spend the $592,000 retrofitting the building and helping the homeless rather than handing the landlord a check to walk away from the building," White said.

The former satellite office is more than 20,000 square feet, White said. And another 10,000 square feet now occupied by Hillsborough County Tax Collector Doug Belden may become available. White said Belden is also trying to get out of his lease in the center.

Ciminelli Real Estate Services, which manages the Floriland Office Center, could not be reached for comment.

White and Higginbotham point out that Floriland does not abut a residential area as the Catholic Charities proposed "tent city" on East Hillsborough Avenue did. Plus, Floriland is home to a number of government agencies and non-profit organizations that could help homeless men and women with job training, domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse, and legal assistance.

"Why would you want to put them somewhere and then bring them to this site when you have one-stop shopping here," Higginbotham said.

White shrugged off concerns that the landlord and tenants would oppose the idea of a homeless center in an office center.

"In these economic times, the landlord would much rather lease long-term to a government agency and be guaranteed their rent, especially with a walk-away clause, rather than leave commercial real estate empty," White said. "I really don't see that being an issue."