Tallaman

bayareaw, I took the liberty of assembling a few different quotes of yours. I also grew up in the bay area and moved to Tallahasee in '92, but I travel around the state often and make it to Tampa several times a year. I drove through downtown last week to see all of the new development and other sights. I can see why you are skeptical. I'd love to see downtown Tampa succeed, but they have some serious flaws that must be addressed; ingress/ egress, dilapidated properties, and lack of retail among them. St. Pete is turning out well and I'm very happy to see that. But St Pete and Tampa are at different places on the timeline. I remember when St Pete had ugly industrial near downtown (the gas plant), no shopping, green benches, no interstate access, an awful reputation - it was dreadful and seems like the only thing going for it was the beautiful waterfront. They have worked very hard over the last two decades (or more) to get where they are and the latest building boom is a culmination of that work; maybe even a catalyst for future development. On the other hand, 30 years ago Tampa had some commercial development downtown and focused on office and employment development, leaving residential for the suburbs. The need for downtown residential did not really become apparent until the last ten years or so. Seems to me Tampa has some pretty good things going for it and can get where St Pete is now with some work, and what's happening now is a good start. It'll always be a stretch to compare Tampa to any other big city, but Tampa can create something special in its downtown that is unique to any otehr place in the country. It does not have to be like any place else, but it'll take some leadership and persistence to get there. I won't be buying a downtown unit for $500,000 any time soon either, but I enjoy watching both downtowns develop and hope they do well.....just my view.

Careful with your generalizations. Look around and you'll see that southerners have endured more change more rapidly than most, certainly more than most move-down yankees. The desire to resist change and cling to that which is familiar is instinctively human. Not all change is good - 30 years ago Orlando was not much bigger than the Tallahassee area. I would not like to see beautiful Tallahassee end up developed like Central Florida, but it can happen and many southerners have seen it happen, bit by bit. Growth and change must be well-thought-out and managed.

Here's an interesting section of an article on browfields in the October edition of Florida Trend that also sheds some light on a development in Channelside... Market boon Florida