Vinik's billion-dollar neighborhood in downtown Tampa will be designed as a place that fosters innovation
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Mar 18, 2015

The urban planning consultants Jeff Vinik has hired to finesse the details of his billion-dollar development in downtown Tampa see their charge as creating more than a neighborhood - it's about economic development.

The planners will determine the specifics of the vision the Tampa Bay Lightning owner unveiled in December - everything from road and sidewalk widths to building heights, storefront spaces and the placement of tree benches. The sum of those details, they say, are what creates a walkable district where people want to live, work, shop and hang out.

Cities that have succeeded at creating those types of signature urban districts are the ones winning at economic development, which has become a war for talent, said David Dixon of Stantec's Urban Places Group. Those districts can become hubs for forward-thinking intellectuals - think of cities like Austin, Texas, or Portland, Ore., where reputations as cool places to live have driven economic growth.

Dixon and Washington, D.C.-based urban planner Jeff Speck, author of "Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step At a Time," have been retained by Vinik's real estate company, Strategic Property Partners, for a 120-day term. "Every city in America is competing as a place where bright young people with college educations or bright people of any age want to be because our future is our knowledge industries," Dixon said. "What Jeff Vinik and the Lightning are doing is building Tampa's best example of that. It's a lot of opportunity and a lot of responsibility. I think one reason is because [Vinik] wants to make sure he pulls every bit of opportunity out of this place."

Dixon and Speck will take the vision plan Pittsburgh-based Urban Design Associates created for Vinik's team and convert it to a much more specific master plan, laying out the exact mix of uses and where each will be located within the district. Master-planned districts are attractive to commercial tenants because the plan is laid out from the get-go, so they know exactly where complementary - and competitive - components will exist.

Speck came into the project after Vinik read his book and invited him to Tampa, though Speck said he was already familiar with UDA's vision plan as it received a lot of attention in the new urbanism community. New urbanism is a school of urban design theory that promotes walkability in mixed-use neighborhoods.

"We feel like we were kind of born on third base in terms of the plan we're starting with," Speck said.

The vacant land that comprises the majority of Vinik's real estate is also appealing, Speck said - it's essentially a blank canvas.

"To find 40 acres of principally surface parking lots this close to downtown that already has anchors in place in the form of an arena, a museum, a convention center, an aquarium, a festival marketplace - they're all there," Speck said. "You've still got all this empty place and a waterfront - what could have greater potential than that?"

Ashley Gurbal Kritzer is a reporter for the Tampa Bay Business Journal.