The activist group Tampa Bay Community Action Committee (TBCAC) will hold a protest at the suggested site of a new Tampa Police Department headquarters.
The pushback comes as the city considers building a site to house the city's public safety departments, including a new police department headquarters. TBCAC plans to demonstrate at the location of the proposed headquarters this Saturday, July 10 at 6 p.m. at 2512 E Hanna Ave. in Seminole Heights East.
“More of the city’s money should be going to the community through a budget based around the people’s needs, not the police!” TBCAC wrote on a flyer for the event.
The current police headquarters, which sits near the Bock the Blub mural at the corner of Franklin Street and E Madison Street in downtown Tampa, is in need of $35 million in repairs, the city says. City planners say that it’s more cost effective to sell the current location and move the headquarters rather than repair it.
Sal Ruggiero, Deputy of Infrastructure Services for the City of Tampa says the city is still in negotiations with Hillsborough County, which owns the land, to see if the property is available for the move. But it's still up in the air.
“I don’t know if it’s going to work out,” Ruggiero told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay.
The sale of the current TPD headquarters and the construction of a new building was originally part of the $100 million plan to build a city center on Hanna Ave. The sale of the current headquarters was originally suggested to help fund the construction of the city center.
The city says the center will host code enforcement, economic development, construction services, workforce development and information technology, among other services. It would host around 500 city employees. Last month, Tampa City Council approved a $6.2 million amendment to build a new city departments complex in east Tampa. If the construction proceeds as planned, the center is set to open in 2023.
TBCAC says it is focused on the police aspect of the city center plans during their protest.
“We know that wherever the police go, they bring racial profiling and police brutality,” TBCAC wrote in the protest announcement.
This is the second time TBCAC has held a rally against the proposed new headquarters. Back in May, the group held a demonstration in front of the current TPD headquarters in downtown.
In January, Tampa was put on the map when the police department budget grew more than any other major U.S. city, after months of protests against police brutality.
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This article appears in Jul 8-14, 2021.