Tampa Mayor Jane Castor waited over 5 months to admit she approved controversial Hanna Ave project

Yesterday, Mayor Jane Castor said that she approved Tampa’s ‘City Center at Hanna Avenue’ after more than five months of councilmen and local leaders asking who was responsible for the controversial project.

Her admission comes after multiple city council meetings since November where construction experts and city council members repeatedly asked who was responsible for green lighting the project, which jumped from $10 million to $108 million without a public bid, among other glaring problems—including initial lack of participation from unions and the Black community.

Not only did Castor avoid answering the community’s important question until yesterday, her city attorneys pushed back on the idea of appearing before council to discuss the project back in March.

Eventually, though, staff did discuss the project. At a city council meeting on March 31, Castor’s Chief of Staff John Bennett said, “The administration brought this together collectively and made the best decision we could at the time.”

But today, buried in the second half of a Tampa Bay Times story about Castor claiming that she doesn’t have “any issues” with city council despite recent conflicts that suggests otherwise, the mayor admitted that it was ultimately her call to approve the city center project.

“I did make that decision. I was presented with all the facts, all of the information, and I made the decision that was in the best interest of our community,” Castor told the Times.

Castor explained her reasoning for approving the project and giving it directly to DPR Construction without a public bid to the Times. She said that leases were expiring in buildings that host city workers, which led to an urgent situation. She said that a delay to publicly rebid the project would have increased costs, especially in light of recent inflation.

But she didn’t answer the question of why she hadn’t come forward and say she made the decision when so many people from the construction community and council were asking who approved the project.

Creative Loafing Tampa Bay reached out to the city’s Communications Director Adam Smith for clarification, but has not yet received a response.

Last week, Castor held a press conference with Smith to discuss more transparency and accountability measures in light of the recent forced resignation of former councilman John Dingfelder due to a public records lawsuit, and councilman Orlando Gudes being accused of creating a hostile workplace, through caustic, sexual language.

But when asked by reporters about the administration’s own transparency, Castor was argumentative, which led to stern words from some of Tampa’s key political and media players.

“I have watched or covered City Hall since 1988 and have never seen this level of animosity from a mayor toward council members,” Wayne Garcia, an award-winning reporter and Master Instructor at University of South Florida told CL.

In November of 2021, Tampa City Council approved the city center project after being persuaded by the Castor administration that the cost was worth it. The project is currently under construction and will house hundreds of city employees on 11-acres.

A month after council’s approval, construction experts started raising the alarm about the project at city council, saying that the bidding process may have violated state law and that there was a lack of representation of Black contractors. Meanwhile, the project is being built on the edge of Seminole Heights and East Tampa, a historically Black area. Union leaders also jumped in, saying that the project did not meet the requirements of the city’s union apprenticeship ordinance.

The chorus of voices grew until several city councilmen also became concerned with the project and challenged the administration on it. The most vocal critics of the project were councilmen Orlando Gudes, Bill Carlson and former Councilman John Dingfelder—all of whom have claimed the administration has targeted them by leaking stories to the media over the past several months.

At the March 31 city council meeting, after council struggled to get city staff to speak to the public about the project, Councilman Carlson was finally able to question city staff about it.

“The big question right now is, who made the decision?” Carlson asked.

He posed this question to Deputy City Attorney Morris Massey, who said, “If there’s a specific person, I don’t know the name of that specific person, but that there was a recommendation of the administration that we do that.”

Massey added that the city’s contract administration also believed it was legally permissible, but Carlson kept asking questions about the administration’s reasoning behind not having a public bidding process. He said that better prices might have been achieved through a competitive bid, asking again who specifically made the decision.

“You’re asking a lawyer about business decisions,” Massey replied.

Massey looked to Bennett, who jumped up to the city council podium in his place, saying, “There were multiple facets that brought this decision together.”

At no point during the meeting was Castor’s name mentioned as the decision maker.

By the end of the meeting, the councilmen, including Carlson, who had originally asked for options on how to rescind the project, allowed the project to move forward. According to staff, improvements include participation of the Black community and union apprentices in the project. But Carlson said that he was disappointed that the legal department would not allow council to change or rebid the contract.

The Tampa Bay Times Editorial Board wasn’t satisfied with the city’s conclusion, citing the project’s flawed bidding process and that the city missed out on a chance for a better deal.

“The city should start over. This was a preventable mistake, and correcting it would send the right message to city staff, the business community and Tampa residents. It might also save precious tax money,” the editorial read. “The word transparency is thrown around pretty casually at City Hall. Here’s a chance to put that buzzword into action, and to remove the East Tampa annex as a political bur.”

Today, Carlson weighed in on the mayor’s admission, saying, “I’m glad Mayor Castor was finally transparent with the public after months of questions about who made this fiscally reckless decision. Constituents want the city to fix potholes, build sidewalks and repair infrastructure rather than wasting money on legacy projects.”

This isn’t the first time that Castor has been linked to questionable decisions regarding development projects in the City of Tampa. Last year, a developer contested Tampa’s decision to award a multi-million dollar construction contract to Miami-based company Related Group, which donated $10,000 to Mayor Jane Castor’s election PAC and employed her nephew.

A review officer eventually decided in the city and the mayor’s favor in the dispute, and that project is also currently underway. 

This article appears in Apr 21-27, 2022.