Downtown Tampa sees two major milestones within weeks
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Jul 29, 2022

Downtown Tampa’s growth shows no signs of slowing, with two significant events in recent weeks indicating years of construction and development to come.

On July 15, Miami-based Related Group paid $55.5 million for just under 6 acres of land on the west bank of the Hillsborough River. The property, which Hillsborough River Realty began assembling in the 1980s, is largely concentrated next to the WFLA-TV studios.

There, Related plans to build more than 1,000 residential units and 32,760 square feet of retail space. The units will be a mix of student housing, market-rate rental units, and for-sale condominiums. Related will also spend $8 million to expand and improve the Riverwalk on the west bank of the river.

One week later, business and civic leaders celebrated the dismantling of the Ardent Mills flour mill. Water Street Tampa developer Strategic Property Partners has owned the mill’s real estate since 2018; in early 2022, the mill opened a state-of-the-art facility in Port Redwing and vacated the downtown location. In the mill’s place, the second phase of Water Street will rise. Perhaps even more significant than Water Street’s vertical construction is the reconfigured road grid it promises to build — one that will finally connect Tampa’s Channel and central business districts.

Together, the projects represent a continued investment in two urban core neighborhoods — investments that will likely spur more development and investment from others in the private sector.

The developers have very different backgrounds; Related Group was founded by Jorge Perez, known as Miami’s condo king, and has an international portfolio. SPP is controlled by Tampa Bay Lightning owner Jeff Vinik and Cascade Investment LLC, the investment fund of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

Former Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn, now a principal with Shumaker Advisors Florida focused on economic development, said he’s been waiting for the development of the west bank property since Hillsborough River Realty first purchased it.

“It puts an exclamation point on the trajectory of Tampa over the last seven years,” Buckhorn said. “This is what I used to wake up every day and hope for.”

Tampa Mayor Jane Castor, who used an excavator to bring down a shed on the flour mill site as part of a demolition ceremony, said the dismantling is “absolutely transformational” for downtown Tampa and that the new street grid will be “magnificent” for pedestrians and cyclists.

“With a 48% increase in traffic fatalities over the last year, we have a lot of work to do,” said Castor, who has committed to Vision Zero, a movement to make traffic fatalities nonexistent. “So we’re trying to provide not only multimodal forms of transit but a safe environment in which our public can travel.”