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Tampa council expected to consider cost reimbursements for Jeff Vinik's vision

 
Jeff Vinik wants more walkable streets.
Jeff Vinik wants more walkable streets.
Published Dec. 27, 2014

TAMPA — Now that Tampa Bay Lightning owner Jeff Vinik has unveiled his vision for downtown Tampa, the City Council is expected to look at — and could vote on — a key piece of project financing.

And soon.

Vinik's development team hopes to have a draft agreement ready for the council to consider when it meets as the Community Redevelopment Agency on Jan. 15.

That way, a city approval could be presented to the Florida Board of Governors when it meets the next week to consider the University of South Florida's request to build a new medical school building on about an acre of land donated by Vinik.

"That would send a very positive message to the Board of Governors that the city and the CRA is behind this project," said Jim Shimberg, the former Tampa city attorney who went to work for Vinik in the spring of 2013.

The agreement is expected to propose that Vinik's development team would pay up front to rebuild roads, improve drainage and make other infrastructure upgrades necessary for his $1 billion redevelopment project around Amalie Arena. Later, the city would use downtown redevelopment funds to reimburse Vinik for those costs once the upgrades are finished.

Vinik's team has estimated the costs, which include a new master stormwater plan, at $25 million to $30 million.

Currently, the area's grid is jumbled, with some fast-moving one-way streets that discourage pedestrians, others set at an angle to the rest of downtown's grid, plus a few dead ends, gaps and roadway alignments that don't line up from one block to the next.

"Right now," Vinik said recently, "there's a mishmash, including five failed intersections."

To create a roomier, easily accessible and more walkable grid, developers want to:

• Extend Old Water Street north of Channelside Drive, creating a new corridor for retail and restaurants, as well as linking new office towers to planned parking garages.

• Extend Ball Street and Cumberland Avenue east to connect to Meridian Avenue, improving east-west movement across the district.

• Eventually close part of Brorein Street that now crosses Vinik's property.

• Enhance streetscaping, add on-street parking and create safe bike lanes.

The road projects and other work are expected to start this spring, after the end of hockey season, and be done in phases over two to three years. If the council approves the agreement, as each phase was completed and the new roads or other improvements were turned over to the city, the developers would ask the city to reimburse the cost of the projects.

Funds for the reimbursements would come from Tampa's downtown Community Redevelopment Area, or CRA. Inside those 870 acres, property taxes generated by new growth are funneled into infrastructure projects designed to support even more growth in downtown. Currently, those CRA funds, about $15 million a year, are pledged to the bonds for the Tampa Convention Center, but that debt will be repaid in full next year.

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This would be the council's first vote related to improvements, but not the last. In coming months, officials also will consider requests to vacate particular streets, including part of Brorein.

The terms of the reimbursement agreement are going to be important, council members said, though they acknowledged that, generally, infrastructure for new growth in the urban core is exactly what downtown CRA money is meant to support.

"I don't have any details," council member Yvonne Yolie Capin said. "Right now I would say yes, but who knows?"

One thing several council members said they would need is enough time to read and think about the proposed agreement, not something handed to them just before the vote.

"I think the goal would be to have something ready early in January" to "share with council members," Shimberg said.

Contact Richard Danielson at rdanielson@tampabay.com or (813) 226-3403. Follow @Danielson_Times.