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There was a time not too long ago when the mayors of Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater wouldn't just ignore each other, they would practically pretend each area didn't exist.
But a prominent women's commercial real estate organization, CREW Tampa Bay, was able to bring the current mayors -- Bob Buckhorn of Tampa, Rick Kriseman of St. Petersburg and George Cretekos of Clearwater -- together. The event that got it done: CREW Tampa Bay's annual economic summit, held June 2 in the Hilton Tampa Downtown.
The biggest bump in creating regional unity among mayors comes from lack of viable transportation options between the cities. That's been a recurring theme the last few years. “Some say it's quicker to get from Europe to Tampa airport, than from Tampa airport to Clearwater Beach,” Cretekos jokes.
But seriously, the lack of mobility hurts the region when it comes to attracting new businesses, Buckhorn says. “Our people today want to live in the urban cores, they want to live in the high-rises, they want to have everything walkable, and they want mass transit,” Buckhorn told the gathering.
Hillsborough County is placing a mass transit package, which would include some light rail options, as a ballot referendum in 2016. But fears that it could end up like Greenlight Pinellas, a mass transit program in the south that failed to pass last year, haunts the overall efforts of the three mayors.
Kriseman also says there's room to grow in St. Pete, even though many consider Pinellas completely built out. Some of that space could come in place of Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Rays.
“We do have available land,” Kriseman says. “Whether it's 70 acres if we redevelop the Trop site with the stadium for the Rays, or 85 acres if (the Rays) end up at some point in time leaving, we have property available to be redeveloped in what is an incredibly exciting time for our city.”
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