EAST TAMPA - Traffic hums along 50th Street, sweeping beneath an overpass of the recently widened Interstate 4.

Out of sight amid the commercial blur of fast food, strip malls, shops and warehouses are some of Tampa's oldest neighborhoods - Highland Pines, Grant Park, Florence Villa, Oak Park and Beasley.

"We're just hidden behind the commercial," said resident Michelle Chipps, who grew up in Oak Park.

The widening of I-4 swept away houses, business frontage and the 90-year-old elementary school at 10th Avenue and 50th, which was a revered landmark to many Oak Park residents. Florida's Department of Transportation took over the school site. The school district built a new elementary school on the other side of I-4, abutting Highland Pines Playground.

A cluster of houses between 10th and the interstate, west of 50th, are surrounded by properties owned by the transportation department, Tampa Electric Co. and several businesses. There are pockets of blight spread through all of the neighborhoods.

But there are many areas of Highland Pines, Grant Park and the combined Florence Villa/Beasley/Oak Park area with street grids, shady trees, neatly clipped lawns, modest houses and neighborhood associations.

It is an area in transition.

Prompted by a 2006 rezoning application, Tampa City Council members asked the Hillsborough Planning Commission to study the 50th Street Corridor to find out what was happening. The Pierce family, which owns 2 acres of vacant residential land on 10th, wanted to rezone the property for boat storage.

The council narrowly rejected the rezoning request three years ago, and the planning commission maintains the site should remain residential. Residents spoke for and against the rezoning at the 2006 hearing.

"I honestly think it is a residential area," said Councilwoman Linda Saul-Sena.

The commission focused its study on a 250-acre swath of the Oak Park area, sliced in half by 50th and bordered by Columbus Drive, 40th and 60th streets, and Broadway Avenue. The study, released this month, found a historical mixed-use pattern of side-by-side commercial and residential development that can be a foundation for future growth. And it concluded the neighborhoods are thriving and should be protected from commercial encroachment.

The Pierce family says it will seek another study focused on a smaller area.

For more than five years Grant Park and Highland Pines have been part of the city's East Tampa initiative, which uses local property taxes to pay for projects including street repaving, playground upgrades and measures to slow traffic through residential and congested areas. Most of Florence Villa/Beasley/Oak Park is outside the redevelopment area.

The area around the I-4 overpass is planned as an East Tampa gateway boosted by a public/private partnership to build a new motel on the site of the former Milner Hotel at 50th and Columbus Drive.

Quality Inn & Suites will open in November. It is being built by East Tampa Ventures, a development company that more than two years ago enlisted the support of the city and a citizen-volunteer group, the East Tampa Community Revitalization Partnership.

About $650,000 in local property taxes were pledged to the approximately $18 million motel project. Some paid for landscaping and sidewalks along 18th Avenue. Most will pay for future widening of Cord Street with an entry into Quality Inn and a gateway monument.

Local companies were hired during construction. Residents eagerly are awaiting a job fair that could net up to 25 jobs in housekeeping, reservations and maintenance.

"That was the focus; keep everything local," said Faron Shore, East Tampa Venture's site manager.

Developers are searching for a "family-style" restaurant to build on the site, possibly an Applebee's or Chili's, Shore said. And next year, construction on another four-story hotel, with a restaurant, is expected to begin.

The area seems cleaned up since the widening of I-4, said Michael Brocato, co-owner of the 61-year-old Brocato's Sandwich Shop on East Columbus Drive.

The shop lost some of its frontage and visibility to the highway widening. But business is brisk.

"If we were a new business starting out, we'd be in trouble," Brocato said. But he praised the overall traffic pattern, especially for larger trucks. "It's still a work in progress," he said.

Across from Brocato's is a remodeled Sweetbay supermarket in Columbus Plaza. But there are vacant storefronts at the plaza.

At Columbus and 50th, northwest of I-4, a sign says Bank of America is coming soon. Chain fast-food restaurants dot the intersections, but some mom-and-pop shops remain.

There has been frustration during the highway's construction.

"It's real dead up in here now," said Fannie Baker, who manages Ms. Linda's Hats & Clothing in a strip mall across from Columbus Plaza. Some customers wouldn't put up with the dust and traffic detours, she said.

A nearby barbershop closed, but a beauty salon is moving in.

Shore, who lives in the area off East Broadway Avenue and once worked at the Milner Hotel, said he sees the new construction having a positive effect.

"It makes you feel good," he said. "I see houses being painted, stuff being cleaned up."

Some residents sense commercial development is crowding in, especially on the west side of 50th. Chipps, who grew up in Oak Park, rents a house from one of the property owners who sought the rezoning.

In recent months a vacant lot across from Chipps' home has become a storage site for dozens of large trash bins. Residents at Tampa Sun Mobile Home park at 47th Street and 10th were evicted in August by the park's Hollywood, Fla.-based owners. Up and down the avenue there are commercial businesses, a boarded house and the state highway's Oak Park construction office.

"The whole area has been turned commercial," Chipps said. She would like to see speed limits on 10th enforced, but as for adding boat storage next door? "What's it going to hurt?" she said.

Reporter Kathy Steele can be reached at (813) 259-7652.