New Plans For The Trop & Tampa Redevelopment

Tampa Bay Business Journal Editor At Large Ashley Kritzer joins to discuss commercial real estate and business stories, including new plans for the Trop and a Tampa redevelopment project.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's go to the hotline and bring in Tampa Bay
Business Journal Editor at large, Ashley Kreutzer. You can find
all of her work and a whole lot more great
reporting at Tampa Bay Business Journal dot com, and you
can also follow her on social media at Ashley Kreutzer. Ashley,
I think we've talked about this the last couple of weeks,
but there are still new developments tied to the redevelopment

(00:21):
of the Tropicana Field site. You've got a Saint pizza
to a council member. They want more time for these pitches.
What's the latest on this?

Speaker 2 (00:29):
So the latest is that the staff is going to
delay the publication of the thirty day notice until January fourth,
twenty twenty six, So it will still be technically a
thirty day window, but then it will have been one
hundred and five days since the October twenty first announcement
that they were going to accept proposals, so it's not
much of an extension. It is still technically a thirty

(00:51):
day window. But I think the thinking here is, well,
you've known since you know, the middle of October that
we're planning to do this, and that that should be
factored in.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
I still don't understand why the window needs to be
so short when we're going back to the drawing board here,
we're basically, in a way starting from scratch, and we
still don't know what's going to happen with the rays.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Correct and that really is a question for American Welch's
administration as to why he wants it so short. I
do know later today Saint Pet's City Council will consider
a resolution to extend that to a ninety days submission period.
So we'll see if city council is able to get
that through later this afternoon. But I mean, I would
think that the urgency here is the mayor's up for

(01:37):
reelection in twenty twenty six. It's like a pretty straightforward equation.
I mean, he hung his political legacy on retaining the
raised in Saint Petersburg. It doesn't look now like they're
going to stay. He only accepted proposals the first time
around with a stadium, nothing that considered the property without
and you know, now there's an election next year.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
The firms that will be putting together proposals. Do you
think that this setup that's now being proposed that you
know you have until like January, before the thirty day
timeline kicks in. Is that enough time for them to
start to really get things together and for there to
be more of a competitive process here.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
You know, I think that a lot of eyes are
going to be on City Council this afternoon to see
what happens with that ninety days submission period. But we
can't forget this administration has also thrown out proposals for
pretty impactful development, proposals like the one that would have
brought a MOFIT cancer center to downtown Saint Pete. And
I think some of that back and forth, even throwing
out the initial raised proposals that the Chrisman administration had

(02:44):
collected and starting the process over again. One of the
worst things for any kind of real estate developer is uncertainty.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
You know.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
We hear all the chatter about how awful New York is,
how awful California is, But they have their policies, and
once there's a fair playbook, everyone plays by the same role.
So it's kind of this uncertainty I think, just as
much as the timing that's going to make developers way
whether they want to respond to this or.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
Not, we're joined by Tampa Bay Business Journal Editor at
large Ashley Kreutzer. Let's shift over to the area around
USF and this Fletcher District, this multi use development project.
We got some renderings that were released recently give us
an overview of the project itself. I mean, it looks

(03:26):
tremendous and it seems like it's something that's kind of
needed in that area.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
It does. It seems really cool. They're calling this the
Fletcher District. I think when you and I have talked
about it previously, it's the claw, the former golf course
on the USF campus that is going to be redeveloped.
And I think the best parallel to draw to it
is that it's similar in nature to Water Street, and
we always point to Water Street, but it is sort
of that gold standard of a mixed use district where

(03:52):
you can live, work, play, and be entertained all within
a fifteen minute walk. And I think that's what they
want to bring to campus and to be the Achilles
Hill of the USF Tampa campus has always been that
it's not really walkable to anything. You know, the area
surrounded by is very scary even in a car. I'm
talking about safety wise. I don't think it's dangerous in
terms of pedestrian versus car, it's dangerous. And so this

(04:16):
would give that walkable, mixed use experience to the USF
Tampa campus that it hasn't had because even though it's
in a very busy commercial corridor, it's very dangerous to
walk around on foot.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
I also think the retail and restaurant part of this
project is important. You know, you've got a lot of
college students going to places like Ebor and South Tampa.
I remember when I was at USF. You know, Ebor
was where we would go. There aren't as many you know,
nicer options for that kind of stuff really close to campus,

(04:50):
and this might provide a little something like that. Not
to mention, you know, you got faculty, You've got a
lot of people coming from all across the country to
so it brings some of that kind of stuff a
little closer to home.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
I think it's all of those things. It's the entertaining
for the foundation, it's faculty, it's conferences. It's also the
student experience. And I think for a lot of us,
the college experience was defined by a walkable community. I
went to school in a very small town up north,
but it was a very walkable downtown and when it
would snow, I just wouldn't clean my car off for
three or four till the snow would melt. And I

(05:26):
mean it doesn't snow here, but I don't think a
USF student could go three or four weeks without getting
in their car.

Speaker 1 (05:31):
What is the timeline like for this, because you just
have so much stuff going on up there right now,
you've got this, You've got the new football stadium, and
USF just how much it's grown, how much it's being
recognized more and more as a top university, and not
just here in the state but in the country. Big
things are happening, all with the new president coming in.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
So the groundbreaking is now set for twenty twenty six.
They haven't been more specific than that. This just forsee
state level or a state level approval from the Florida
border governors last week. So I think now that they
have that, that's sort of the last piece of the puzzle.
They'll be moving forward looking for water management permits and
permits from Hillsborough County the City of Tampa. I know
USF kind of straddles both the city and county. So

(06:16):
now they'll be sort of in that administrative phase until
they can move forward with construction, but I think it'll
be sooner rather than later. In this first phase is
twenty seven acres. The claw in total is one hundred
and thirty eight acres, but twenty seven acres is bigger
than midtown Tampa, so it will be significant.

Speaker 1 (06:31):
All right. We're joined by Tampa Bay Business Journal Editor
at large Ashley Kreutzer. Last thing, I want to get
to foot Locker scaling back its plans for Saint Pete.
What's going on there.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
So this was very much expected after Footlocker was acquired
by Dick's Sporting Goods, which is based in western Pennsylvania
near Pittsburgh. But it's still a blow to Saint Pete
and Tampa Bay because landing of corporate head quarters like
Footlocker as a household name. Right. You know, we talk
all the time about companies that are sort of unseen
to the average consumer if they're in cybersecurity or they

(07:04):
offer business to business services. But everybody knows Footlocker. Everybody's
been to a Footlocker store. And like I said, they
were acquired by dick Supporting Goods, and this deal that
had been in the works, my god, since at least
like twenty nineteen. It went public in twenty twenty two,
then it died, and it came back in twenty twenty four.
They finally signed a very large office lease earlier this year,

(07:25):
and then we have learned that they are going to
continue the construction of that space, but they're going to
occupy less than half of it because they don't need it,
because they have been acquired by a much larger, publicly
traded company that doesn't need that real estate on its books.

Speaker 1 (07:36):
All right, Tampa Bay Business Journal Editor at large Ashley
Kretzer with lots for us this morning. You can check
out all of her reporting on that story and lots
more at Tampa Bay Business Journal dot com. Again, that's
Tampa Bay Business Journal dot com, and you can also
follow her on social media at Ashley Kreutzer. Ashley really
appreciate it. We'll talk to you next week.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
A Ryan Gorman Show Bye to nine every weekday morning
on news radio WFLA.