Tampa seeks buyer for city block in center of downtown
By Richard Danielson
Tampa Bay Times
Published: Jul 27, 2016

TAMPA - It's been nearly 20 years since the Cold Storage Cafe - a lively coffee shop, bar and hub of political gossip - was closed and demolished.

Now Tampa officials think the site across from City Hall is ripe for commerce again. They are inviting developers to submit proposals for mixed-use projects featuring office, retail, hotel rooms or housing.

In announcing the request for proposals, Mayor Bob Buckhorn called the site, a city-owned parking lot on N Florida Avenue just east of City Hall, "essentially the most prominent undeveloped parcel" in downtown.

"With the right vision," Buckhorn said, "this could be the new crown jewel of our skyline."

There's one condition: The developer has to agree to provide two or more parking decks in its garage - or about 200 spaces - for use by the city.

Cold Storage occupied the block until early 1997, serving Cuban coffee to top city officials who gathered there virtually every morning and iced buckets of long-neck beers to lunch- and dinner-time crowds, including, once, jurors hearing a first-degree murder trial down the street. With the consent of management, patrons covered the inside of the cafe with a subway station's worth of graffiti.

City Hall bought the land for $1.3 million in 1997. The Hillsborough County Property Appraiser estimates its current market value at nearly $2.7 million. The city has not received any unsolicited offers on the property, according to Bob McDonaugh, Buckhorn's top economic development official.

Development proposals are due Sept. 9. City officials have said they won't necessarily base a decision solely on who offers the most money. Successful proposals, they said, will demonstrate experience in developing downtown residential, office or retail projects, architectural sensitivity to the surrounding area and a solid financial track record.

In his five years as mayor, Buckhorn has taken advantage of a recovering real estate market and a renewed interest in urban living to bring new development to several long-dormant properties: the boutique Le Méridien Hotel in the historic federal courthouse on Florida Avenue, the Ulele restaurant in the city's old pumphouse next to Water Works Park, and a block near Interstate 4 in Ybor City sold for a new apartment project.

During his final three years in office, Buckhorn said, he wants to reduce the city's inventory of vacant lots, many of them in east Tampa. He estimated that the city could have as many as 60 or 70 pieces of land in the central part of the city.

"I want to find ways to be more nimble and more aggressive in incentivizing economic development opportunities or redevelopment in the center city," Buckhorn said, "and I don't know how to go about doing it yet. . . . Part of it would be finding ways to streamline how we dispose of properties that we have, (plus) expediting our ability to foreclose on vacant lots or dilapidated houses, and then get them back into circulation quicker."

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