The loss of a $23.3 federal housing grant is a speed bump for Encore, but won't slam the brakes on the downtown Tampa development, veteran commercial real estate broker Brenda Dohring Hicks said.

The chief executive of the Dohring Group is playing a key role in the project partnership between the Tampa Housing Authority and Bank of America Community Development Corp.

"The grant would have kept us moving at the same pace,” Dohring Hicks said, "but this is not going to stall us so badly that we will lose momentum.”

As first reported in the Oct. 7 print edition of the Tampa Bay Business Journal, Tampa was the only one of six cities denied a share of the $122 million Choice Neighborhood Initiative grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

"I was not happy with HUD's decision,” Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn said this week. "I think we deserved it and I think we were slighted. We were truly shovel-ready.”

Tampa Housing Authority officials have complained about the decision in a letter to U.S. Senator Bill Nelson and U.S. Representative Kathy Castor.

"We fight for every grant,” Castor said. "This was one round we lost, but the community has done very well in obtaining (federal) money.”

The estimated $480 million Encore development has received about $40 million in federal funds.

Earlier this week Castor announced the city received a $759,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to help revitalize East Tampa.

Dohring Hicks said not getting HUD's Choice Neighborhood grant would delay construction of a 156-unit senior housing development at Encore by two or three months. She said it would not negatively impact commercial interest in the project, since private developers are looking at horizons of a year or more.

"It's a blip,” she said. "It's not a nice blip.”

A supermarket, widely believed to be Publix, is under contract at Encore.

Without confirming the identity, Dohring Hicks said she is confident a deal would be announced before the end of the year.

She said hotel and retail interests are also considering the 40-acre mixed-use project.

The grant Castor and Buckhorn announced for East Tampa is also supposed to lure a grocery store to 22^nd Street and Mallory Avenue, about two miles east of Encore. Castor said that effort would not preclude bringing a grocery to the downtown development.

Mark Holan's beats include commercial real estate, transportation and ports, and economic development