Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn told CL a few weeks ago that with the exception of "one columnist," there was very little dissent regarding the plan for a 400-foot, 36-story apartment tower — called the Residences at the Riverwalk — to be built in downtown Tampa between the Straz Center and the John F. Germany public library.
We assume the mayor was talking about the Tampa Bay Times' John Hill, who again delivered a powerful fusillade against the project in the newspaper's lead editorial today:
The project doesn't belong in the cultural arts district for the same reason that no towers are there now. For years, the city's guiding ethos has been to locate high-rises along Ashley Drive or toward the pedestrian Franklin Street retail district. The arts and waterfront districts have been set aside as open, public spaces, with protections that preserve the view corridors to the river from the interior streets. Turning urban design on its head is bad enough. But this tower would dwarf its entire surroundings. It would stand more than three times as tall as the Straz and nearly seven times as tall as the adjacent library and Poe garage.
(Update: The mayor contacted CL this evening and let us know he was not referring to any editorial writer, but Tampa Tribune columnist Steve Otto, who has also big critical about the development. "Big difference" writes Buckhorn).
But he's hardly the only opponent, and the question remains: Will the City Council do something at tomorrow night's meeting that has yet to happen in the Buckhorn era — reject a proposal that the mayor strongly supports?
This article appears in Aug 8-14, 2013.
