TAMPA - New York's Fifth Avenue, London's Oxford Street and Chicago's Magnificent Mile have nothing to fear from downtown Tampa.

Although Channelside Drive, the Arts District and the Franklin Street corridor have begun to show some retail stirrings after years of stagnation and promises, few would agree that downtown Tampa has yet to show its potential as a vibrant urban center for shopping, dining and entertainment.

However, there are small-yet-definite signs that the retail outlook for downtown Tampa is changing. And although strolling through downtown Tampa may never replicate the experience of window shopping on Michigan Avenue in Chicago or crossing through Central Park in New York, 2008 could be the year that downtown Tampa begins to amass enough restaurants, galleries and shops - and buzz - to pique the interest of people accustomed to spending all their time, and money, in the suburbs.

If you want to see what's fueling much of the new retail push in downtown Tampa, just look up.

A handful of new condominium buildings, mostly towers, have just been completed. The new condominium buildings create demand for new shops and restaurants by bringing new residents to downtown Tampa. They also provide ground-level space for tenants to lease or buy.

How much retail space will become available in downtown Tampa this year? No official figure is available, but a rough back-of-the-envelope calculation shows 150,000 square feet to 200,000 square feet, most of it in the Channel District.

As a comparison, the average Wal-Mart Supercenter in the Tampa Bay area covers about 200,000 square feet.

Across from the Channelside Bay Plaza entertainment center, in the Towers of Channelside condominium, construction crews are building out the interior of the Red Brick Gourmet Pizza restaurant.

The restaurant is one of five retail spaces, totaling 42,000 square feet, inside the Towers of Channelside. Four of the five spaces have been sold, according to development company CEO Richard Sacchi, and a fifth is under negotiation to a fitness center operator.

A Variety Of Restaurants

Sacchi said the pizza restaurant will be the first retailer to open inside the Towers of Channelside. The buyers of the three remaining spaces are planning to open a Miami-style martini bar, a sushi restaurant, and a package store featuring wine and fine liquors, he said. Sacchi predicted the other restaurants would open this year, but said he said it's up to the owners to set the dates.

The Towers of Channelside opened earlier this year; it has 257 units in two 29-story towers. About 100 units, representing 200 tenants, are now occupied.

A few blocks north, the 127,000 square feet of ground-level retail space at Grand Central at Kennedy is still empty.

Tim Stoltenberg says the storefronts shouldn't remain vacant for long.

Stoltenberg is director of Mercury Advisors, the developer of Grand Central at Kennedy. Now that the 392-unit condominium building is open, and 65 percent of the residents have moved in, Stoltenberg says he's started talking with potential retail tenants.

Stoltenberg said it's too early to divulge whom he's talking to, but he describes them as "the usual suspects": coffee shops, pharmacies, restaurants, service providers and the like, who are interested in opening shop to support the building's residential base and the growing number of people who live in the Channelside area.

Stoltenberg said he predicts it will take six to 18 months for restaurants and shops to begin moving in to Grand Central.

Retail expert Lee Nelson, a senior associate at CB Richard Ellis in Tampa, said restaurants and shops will "flock" to the newly built space. But it will take years - not months - for the vacancies to be filled.

"Retailers have to have customers," she said. "Until those condos are full of people, the retail will not come. Then it will be vibrant and exciting."

In 2007, developers completed 1,500 new condominium units in downtown Tampa, according to the Tampa Downtown Partnership. Most of the larger condominium buildings completed in 2007 contain ground-level retail space.

In comparison with this year's condo crop, developers completed 720 new condominium units in downtown Tampa from 2004 to 2006, according to the partnership.

Fly And SkyPoint

West of the Channel District, the typically moribund Franklin Street corridor - lifeless except during lunchtime on workdays, and just before and right after a show at the Tampa Theatre - has seen additional traffic because of Fly, a restaurant that has received exceptional word-of-mouth reviews, and the newly opened Orange Park Gallery.

Nearby, the new Malio's Prime in Rivergate Tower resurrected a legendary Tampa restaurant name at a riverfront address.

In the Arts District, the new SkyPoint condominium building expects to announce its two retail tenants sometime this spring.

The 380-unit building is already completed, and home to about 300 residents, according to Greg Minder, president of developer Intowngroup LLC. Demand for the 10,000 square feet of retail space was strong, but the development group interviewed potential tenants to find local companies that will create attractive, distinctive dining experiences, Minder said.

It's too soon to announce who the tenants will be, because negotiations aren't complete yet, Minder said. Once the deals are wrapped up and made public, it shouldn't take long for the new businesses to open, he said.

Minder's company already has begun construction on a second condominium building in the Arts District, called Element. Like SkyPoint, Element will feature 15,000 square feet of retail space when it is completed in 2008.

Dogs And Strollers

Paul Ayres, director of marketing and business development for the Tampa Downtown Partnership, said downtown Tampa's retail offerings will evolve over the next few years as the downtown shifts from being primarily a place where people work into one where people also call home.

Ayers said it's inevitable that new shops, restaurants and service providers will spring up in downtown, but that the retailers will probably trail the residential growth by 6 months to two years.

"It's going to be a natural following," he said. "That's what happens everywhere."

The people are already there, Ayres said.

"Walking through downtown, you start to see more and more people with dogs, more and more people with strollers," he said. "Retailers are starting to notice that."

Back in the Channel District, one of the first retail and residential pioneers is starting to notice it too.

Anthone La Badie opened his salon, Luxe Urbain, in January 2006 in the Channel District. He lives in the neighborhood.

When he opened, La Badie got most of his business through word of mouth. In the past three months, he's seen a lot more walk-in business from people who have moved in to the neighborhood. Now he's looking to add two part-time hairdressers and someone to do spa services in 2008.

"We decided almost immediately, knowing all the construction that was coming into this neighborhood, that this is where we wanted to be," he said. "It's taken a little longer to get the neighborhood customers in, but now there's so much coming into this neighborhood."

Reporter Dave Simanoff can be reached at dsimanoff@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-7762.