New Tampa Downtown Partnership CEO wants to bring storefronts to life
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Sep 18, 2024

In Kenyetta Bridges’ view, there is no shortage of businesses that could fill empty storefronts in downtown Tampa.

“There have been talks about industrial [uses] in certain areas of downtown, and a lot of people will say, ‘We don’t want industrial in our downtown. We want coffee shops. We want yoga studios and traditional retail,’” said Bridges, who became president and CEO of the Tampa Downtown Partnership on July 1. “But when you start to think about climbing gyms for kids — a storefront that has a climbing gym for youth, that’s an example of an industrial use that brings people downtown.”

Bright, engaging storefronts are critical to the work Bridges is undertaking at the partnership. As CEO, Bridges said one of her priorities is better connecting the neighborhoods in and around the urban core. One way she plans to tackle the issue is by focusing on ground-level retail spaces.

“When there’s a lot of activity, and there’s more vibrancy along the corridors, that walk seems much, much shorter,” Bridges said.

Bridges is taking the helm in Tampa after 20 years at the Detroit Economic Growth Corp., most recently serving as chief operating officer. In her previous role as an economic developer, Bridges had incentives to offer developers. She and her team negotiated local and state incentives and other resources for several projects, including the mixed-use sports and entertainment hub The District Detroit and Ford Motor Co.’s restoration of Michigan Central Station, a project that exceeded $740 million in investment.

The partnership isn’t a traditional economic development organization, but Bridges said she sees placemaking and economic development as inextricably linked.

“I know that’s not historically what the partnership has done, but I think there’s an opportunity for us to have greater involvement in that space,” Bridges said of economic development. “As the lead voice for downtown, the partnership should be involved in conversations around the growth of downtown.”

Tampa General Hospital’s medical district — which includes the University of South Florida’s Morsani College of Medicine in Water Street Tampa, the TGH main campus on Davis Islands and its Kennedy Boulevard campus — is one opportunity to combine economic development and placemaking, Bridges said.

“You will have opportunities to do some very cool placemaking around health — walking trails and things like that,” she said. “But I also think that there’s a business opportunity. So you start to look at who you’re attracting here as a region — and that’s the economic development mindset coming out — who are we attracting here as a region? Could some of those smaller businesses be placed in some of the smaller footprints to start, creating that connectivity through a district of health care, research and innovation?”

The collaboration between regional players was part of what appealed to Bridges about her new role, and she said she’s looking forward to building relationships with other executives to help convey what downtown Tampa needs.

“As we start to look at the ground-level retail and talk about how we program it, how do we help developers think differently about the space? How do we help developers break up that space so that that space is conducive to a micro business?” Bridges said. “That’s the conversation that I believe the partnership can really help to shepherd.”