As Tampa considers ending the Channel district's CRA funding, one developer says it could kill the urban neighborhood's momentum
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Jun 15, 2020

Even with all of the progress in downtown Tampa's Channel district in recent years — from the construction of over 1,000 new luxury apartments to a full-service grocery store — developer Ken Stoltenberg doesn't think the district is anywhere close to done.

"We’re about half done," says Stoltenberg, who developed both Grand Central at Kennedy and the Channel Club. "It's planned to redo Channelside drive, redo Twiggs Street and a couple little streets here and there, and there's some infrastructure not yet underground. All of the undeveloped area east of Channelside Drive — that’s over a third of the district."

That's why, Stoltenberg said, he was "heartbroken" to learn of an initiative to sunset the district's community redevelopment agency status, or CRA. CRAs are state-designated areas that retain all new or incremental tax money generated within their boundaries to fund future development. If the district's CRA designation goes away, its taxes will go into the city's general fund — where Tampa City Councilman Bill Carlson wants to redirect it to poorer neighborhoods, like East Tampa, Sulphur Springs and the area surrounding the University of South Florida.

The Channel district became a CRA in 2003, a designation that is slated to run through 2033. It encompasses 221 acres and has a balance of $17.7 million, according to the city's 2019 CRA activity report. Ending the CRA designation early, planning and development experts say, has the potential to undermine the trust of investors and developers and signal instability from a policy perspective. That could have a chilling effect on Tampa's urban construction boom: Real estate developers, especially in the institutional class, seek out cities with stable leadership and policy when they're making long-term, large-scale investments.

But proponents of sunsetting the CRA funding say it has served its purpose of spurring development in a blighted area, and that the Channel district no longer meets the criteria for needing that type of money.

"The revenue the Channel district is going to lose is easily $100 million to $150 million over the next 13 years," Stoltenberg said. "The only word I can think of is tragic. We were operating under the assumption we had 30 years because that’s what the charter says, and this just came out of left field to me."

Carlson last week led an initiative to ask city staff to "create a plan to begin drawing down the Channel district CRA fund for fiscal year 2021 and to complete the draw down in fiscal year 2022." He also made a motion for staff to explore placing a cap on the downtown CRA, which has a combined balance of just over $18 million between the core and non-core downtown CRAs.

East Tampa's CRA has a balance of $4.5 million.

"The idea is to get development moving, not to continue subsidizing the area when it’s successful," Carlson said of the Channel district CRA. "At what point do you draw the line?"

Staff will present their findings at the July 23 CRA board meeting, where city council could vote to retire and cap the respective CRAs — or move to continue the discussion in the future.

Michelle Van Loan, the city's CRA director, told the Tampa Bay Business Journal on Sunday that Rob Rosner, a city staffer who manages the CRAs for the Channel district, Central Park and Tampa Heights, was in the process of identifying future projects in the Channel district that need funding for the July 23 meeting.

In March, Van Loan presented a list of projects currently underway to city council acting as the CRA board. Many were road improvement projects — street resurfacing, sidewalk improvements, landscaping and parking — and in the early stages of design.

Carlson contends that other neighborhoods' needs outrank those of the district. He says one staff member said of the Channel district that "the only thing we can do beyond this point is to gold plate the [street] lamps."

"We desperately need money in our poorest communities. We even need money in South Tampa," said Carlson, who represents South Tampa. "All the money that was spent downtown was spent on projects that are nice to have, but they’re not essential."

Carlson has longstanding, well-documented issues with former mayor Bob Buckhorn and his administration's approach to urban revitalization. Buckhorn's approach was largely based on Urban Land Institute models that promote investment in the public realm, like the $35 million Julian B. Lane Riverfront Park.

Meanwhile, Carlson said, parks in East Tampa and South Tampa are crumbling. A community center in East Tampa reportedly has a rat infestation.

"If you look at the problems we have on the street, it’s because the last administration ignored the rest of the city and only spent money on downtown," he said.

But Stoltenberg, who was the first developer to pursue a major project in the Channel district, says the district is now a victim of its own success and that sunsetting the CRA to sweep its money into the general fund will likely keep the neighborhood from reaching its full potential.

"Nobody can sell the Channel district like me, and I was always able to tell other developers that we have this dedicated fund that will go until 2033 to bring in tons of money get infrastructure done, buy land and build parks," he said. "I can’t say that anymore."