MMM - 04/26/2010

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April 26, 2010

Monday Morning Memo is your weekly update on the latest news about downtown Tampa. Here are the sections found in this issue. Click on the sections below or scroll down to read the complete issue:

Partnership Matters | Opportunities | Studies and Reviews | Seeing is Believing | Special Services District | Creative Urban Core | Downtown Happenings | In and Around InTown

Partnership Matters

Staff news!

Congratulations to the Partnership’s own Sally Santos! Sally was named last Friday as “Administrative Professional of the Year” by the Tampa Bay Business Journal. All of us at the Partnership are extremely grateful for the hard work Sally does on a daily basis. She is known as the “glue” at the Partnership. Congratulations Sally!
Also, congratulations to the Partnership’s business manager, Laura Klopp! Laura has received the Dean’s List Excellence Award from Hillsborough Community College. Laura maintains a 3.97 GPA. Way to go, Laura!

ATTENTION ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PROFESSIONALS: The Tampa Downtown Partnership has teamed up with the International Economic Development Council to offer a class in downtown Tampa on Real Estate Development and Reuse. This class will be offered November 4th and 5th at Hyatt Regency Tampa. If you register now you can save! Use promotional code TAMPA10 and your fee is only $425.00 per person. To register and find out more, click here.

Tampa Water Department customers can learn about ways to manage their utility costs and protect the environment at a 'Go Green At Home On A Budget' customer clinic on May 8. The clinic will include presentations and workshops on water and energy efficiency designed specifically for single-family residential customers and is open to current City of Tampa Water Department customers only. The clinic will be held at the Kate Jackson Community Center from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 8. Topics include home water audits, Florida-friendly landscaping, and programs and resources available to help manage utility costs. Pre-registration is recommended, as seating is limited. A $10 per person registration fee, payable to the Mayor's Beautification Program, covers workshop materials, a box lunch and refreshments. A link to more information about the 'Go Green At Home On A Budget' clinic and registration forms are available at www.TampaGov.net/SaveWater. Partners for the May clinic are the Mayor's Beautification Program, Tampa Electric, the Hillsborough County Extension Service, and the Pinellas Association of Plumbing, Heating and Cooling Contractors.

Tampa Bay is among the final 18 cities under consideration to serve as a potential host city for the 2018 or 2022 FIFA World Cup. Tampa Bay & Company is requesting the support of community members, partners, Tampa Bay fans, and everyone else to help bring the World Cup back to the United States and to Tampa Bay for the first time. With the start of the 2010 World Cup in just a few weeks, the USA Bid Committee has re-launched the petition campaign to help show the level of dedication our community has to hosting the World Cup, and there is still a goal of 50,000 signatures. Log on to www.GoUSABid.com/TampaBay and join the movement to bring this prestigious event to the destination. It only takes seconds to sign the petition and every signature counts! Then, help spread the word and share this message with friends, family, coworkers, colleagues and others. It has been indicated by the USA Bid Committee that an FIFA World Cup in the United States in 2018 or 2022 would expect to realize an economic impact of $100 million per game. The overall impact of $6.4 billion for the FIFA World Cup would be the most ever realized for a sporting event anywhere in the world.

The Tampa Port Authority announced that Royal Caribbean International (RCI) will enhance its deployment season in Tampa beginning in November 2011, with the Jewel of the Seas. Launched in 2004, the 90,000 ton Radiance Class Jewel of the Seas holds 2,500 passengers and more than 850 crew members. At 962 feet in length, the ship will offer passengers an array of dining, entertainment and recreational opportunities. RCI credits the ship as having the highest percentage of outside cabins in its fleet. Jewel of the Seas will replace Radiance of the Seas, which is scheduled for 44 sailings from Tampa for the 2010-2011 season. Vacationers will enjoy options including two, five-night and a four-night Western Caribbean itinerary from Tampa. Tampa Port Authority (www.tampaport.com) administers Florida’s largest and one of the nation’s most diversified ports. The Port of Tampa is one of the nation’s premier cruise home ports.

Tampa Bay & Company hosted its annual research presentation today to unveil the 2009 Hillsborough County Visitor Study. Held at Maestro's at the David A. Straz, Jr. Center for the Performing Arts, the presentation consisted of tourism research including the number of visitors to Hillsborough County, the economic and employment impacts of the Visitor Industry, visitor travel origins, length of stay, spending habits and more. A presentation was given Mark Bonn, Bonn Marketing Research Group, Inc., who discussed the results of the 2009 Visitor Impact Study and answered questions. Due to the Hospitality & Tourism Industry's efforts, in 2009:

Tampa Bay welcomed 15.1 million visitors
Those visitors spent $2.9 billion in Hillsborough County
Over 46,200 local jobs were provided
Those jobs produced over $1.1 billion in wages

Log on to www.VisitTampaBay.com/Research more information about the 2009 Hillsborough County Visitor Study.

The St. Pete Times Forum has been ranked fourth in the United States and within the top 10 in the world on the Top 50 Worldwide Arena Venues list by Pollstar in the first quarter of 2010. The award was based on tickets sold worldwide as reported to Pollstar for shows played between 1/1/10 and 3/31/10. Pollstar is a publication that gets its information primarily from the agents, managers and promoters who are producing concerts. In its first quarter recap, Pollstar reported that the St. Pete Times Forum sold over 139,000 tickets for January, February and March 2010. The 21,500 seat downtown arena hosted shows including Alicia Keys, Black Eyed Peas and John Mayer, as well as sellout concerts by Michael Bublé and Taylor Swift. It also welcomed family shows like Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey®, Harlem Globetrotters, Smucker’s Stars on Ice Tour and the Tampa Tennis Classic. Acts scheduled for the remainder of 2010 include Carole King & James Taylor, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Maxwell and Jill Scott and Carrie Underwood with many more great shows still to be announced. Although not included in the aforementioned compiling, the St. Pete Times Forum is home to the 2004 Stanley Cup Champion Tampa Bay Lightning hockey team and five-time World Champion Tampa Bay Storm arena football team.

Downtown’s Channel District continues to see improvements. Recently the City of Tampa has been working on several engineering projects. To review the latest report, click here.

Construction on the expansion of the TECO Line Streetcar System continues this week. Here is the latest:

Northbound Franklin St right lane will remain closed from Channelside Dr to Cumberland Ave (southern Ft Brooke Garage entrance)
Northbound Franklin St left lane from Old Water St to Channelside Dr will be open. There will be instances in which a flagman is on-site in this lane directing traffic as the streetcar track is laid
Brorein St right turn lane at Franklin St (northern mail drop lane) will remain closed
Whiting St all lanes will remain open

What are they working on?

Connection of existing OCS cabling to temporary pole
Installation of Storm structure at the southeast corner of Channelside and Franklin
Installation of signalization conduit
Track base installation in the east lane of northbound Franklin St from Brorein to the Ft Brooke Garage
Installation of concrete curb separator and sidewalk within northbound Franklin St from Channelside Dr to Brorein
Track installation within Franklin St north of Channelside Dr

This is the Tampa UCAP Downtown Water Pipeline Replacement Project update for April 26. A map with the road/lane closures is available by clicking here.

Twiggs Street (west of Meridian): The two lanes on the north side of Twiggs from Meridian to Pierce will be closed. Motorists should expect a new traffic pattern as the two lanes on the south side will be westbound only. Eastbound motorists will be detoured on Pierce to Jackson. Limited street parking will be available in this area.
Twiggs Street (east of Meridian): Motorists should expect a new traffic pattern. Eastbound traffic will be maintained and traffic will shift to one lane westbound from Meridian to Channelside.
Nebraska Avenue (Kennedy to Cass): Two western lanes closed. One northbound lane and one southbound lane remain open. No left turn onto Twiggs from northbound lane.
Doyle Carlton Drive (I-275 to Laurel): Southbound lane closed. Northbound lane remains open.
Cass Street (Ashley to Franklin): Southern parking and travel lane closed between Ashley and Franklin. Two lanes remain open for eastbound traffic.
Polk Street (Ashley to Tampa): Northern westbound travel lane and parking lane closed to through traffic.
Tampa Street (Tyler to Twiggs): Two travel lanes, parking lane and bike lane on the west side closed. Two lanes remain open for southbound traffic. No street parking available in this area.
Jefferson Street (Twiggs to Zack): Beginning Wednesday, April 28th, the northbound lanes will be closed. The southbound lanes will remain open for local access only.
Please allow for extra time to get to your destination as many of the roads in the downtown area have lane closures or different traffic patterns due to UCAP and other City of Tampa construction activities.

Additional information about this project can be found on the Tampa UCAP website at www.tampa-ucap.com.

In the current economic situation, it’s great to see businesses growing and expanding. This is the case with downtown’s own bicycle shop, City Bike Tampa. This Friday (5/1) City Bike Tampa will be cutting the ribbon on their new location at the Tampa Marriott Waterside Hotel & Marina. The new location will be addition to their main store located at 212 East Cass Street. The ribbon cutting will take place at 4:30 p.m. The location at the Marriott Waterside Hotel & Marina will be offering rentals for one hour, get one hour free rentals all day Friday and buy one get one on history tours Saturday & Sunday of this week.

The downtown area will be the location of an upcoming event called Get Motivated. This event is very popular and will attract many attendees who may not be that familiar with downtown. Get Motivated will occur Tuesday (4/27) at the St. Pete Times Forum. The City of Tampa has issued a traffic advisory. Please review the advisory and plan accordingly. To view the advisory, click here.

Only three Fridays remain in this season of the Tampa Downtown Market. The Market will end May 14th. The South Tampa News recently made a visit to the Market. Read what the newspaper reported by clicking here.

The “Chic” Jackson Street Bistro is celebrating their one year anniversary. The Bistro complements the newly designated “Building of the Year” – the SunTrust Financial Centre and is well-regarded as the Centre’s “best kept secret”. Peter Pergola, the proprietor, admits it has been a tough road opening in this downsized economy, where more people are “brown bagging”, companies are downsizing staff and tightening their belts on company catering. Understanding the struggling economy, Pergola has made improvements to the menu & prices and has added economically priced daily and weekly hot entrees Hours of operation are 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday.

The Partnership would like to congratulate downtown’s own Tindale Oliver and Associates for meeting the Standard of Excellence and being designated a Best Workplace for Commuters. Best Workplaces for Commuters members are nationally recognized companies offering outstanding commuter benefits to their employees. As a member of BWC, employers receive high profile national recognition, program innovation, education and research. For more information on the program, visit www.bestworkplaces.org.

Historic Tampa Union Station is one of downtown’s gems. Come see it for yourself on National Train Day on May 8. National Train Day celebrates America‘s love for trains with events across the country. This year marks the third annual celebration with large-scale, free family-friendly events that provide opportunities to explore interactive, educational exhibits that bring to life the rich narrative of how trains have transformed America and will continue to do so in the future.

May is National Bike Month. Once again, the Partnership has teamed up with the Tampa BayCycle campaign to offer a variety of activities and events to celebrate. To kick off the month, please join us on May 4 for group bike to work rides into downtown. Street skills and maintenance classes are being offered by CityBike Tampa. Click here for the full list or visit www.tampabaycycle.com.

And speaking of bikes, downtown is proud to showcase some innovative bike racks installed on Earth Day last week. The Partnership partnered with Tampa Bay Technical High School’s architecture students to design bike racks made partly of old bike parts. These functional public art pieces were then fabricated by the welding students and painted by the auto body class. Click here to read the press release.

Mother’s Day is just around the corner and to help you plan what your day with Mom, the Partnership has created a special page on its Web site. The site offers information about special offers and ideas on activities Mom may enjoy. From apparel discounts to free admissions, downtown merchants and venues have something for everyone to enjoy on Mom’s special day.

Hurricane season starts in seven short weeks and preliminary predictions report an active storm season for 2010. Learn more about what to expect, how to protect your downtown properties, downtown’s evacuation and re-entry process and what emergency measures are in place to help in the event of a hurricane or disaster by attending the Downtown Security Network’s Annual Hurricane meeting sponsored by TECO Energy on Friday, June 11 at 8:30 a.m. at TECO Hall. The event is FREE to attend, however seating is limited so your RSVP is necessary. Click here to register to attend.

The public is invited Friday May 7, from 5 to 7 p.m., to Franklin Street Fine Woodwork Studios (1609 N. Franklin Street)’s Artist Invitational Gallery. Proprietors Carl Johnson and Alison Swann-Ingram, of Franklin Street Fine Woodwork, are pleased to exhibit the works of talented local artists Julian Corvin, Elizabeth Kozlowski, Steven Widoff, Jennie Sikora-Muehl, Alex Espalter Torres and Kuebler Perry. The 1609 Artist Invitation exhibition includes painting, photography and clay works alongside the fine craft products of Franklin Street Fine Woodwork. The 1609 Artist Invitational is free to the public, artwork will be for sale and light refreshments will be available. The exhibition of local artwork will be the first event of the year open to the public in the newly renovated Franklin Street Fine Woodwork Studios. Johnson and Swann-Ingram completed a carefully crafted renovation of the North Franklin Street building last fall, leading to an evaluation for listing on the National Historic Register. The completed project now serves as artisan studio space for Johnson and Swann-Ingram and houses the woodworking classes offered by Franklin Street Fine Woodwork Studios. For more information about the Franklin Street 1609 Artist Invitational please call Alison Swann Ingram at (813) 223.3490 or e-mail info@FranklinStreetfw.com. Visit Franklin Street Fine Woodwork Studios online at www.franklinstreetfw.com.

This weekend is the Tampa Bay Dragon Boat races and Asia Fest! These two events are sure to be big draws to downtown Tampa. Don’t miss any of the excitement.

The annual Tampa Bay International Dragon Boat Races will take to the waters of Downtown Tampa on Saturday (5/1). New this year is an International Beer & Food Festival held in Cotanchobee/Fort Brooke Park, alongside the race course. Go to www.tampabaydragonboats.com for more information.
The Tampa Asian community celebrates its diverse heritage on Saturday (5/1) when the 27th Annual Celebration of Asia Fest returns to downtown Tampa! Asia Fest 2010 will be held at the St. Pete Times Forum. Festivities begin at 11 a.m. with an Opening Ceremony. This is a very diverse collection of cultures from the various Asian communities including China, Cambodia, Japan, Thailand and more. Check out the event flyer for more details.

Tampa Bay Storm take on the Arizona Rattlers this Saturday, May 1st at 7:30pm for their Youth Football game. Fans can come early to enjoy Pre-Game Festivities start at 4pm on the West Plaza including free kids games and activities. At 4pm Storm Players walk the Red Carpet and greet fans and the first 100 people to arrive get All You Can Eat Seat ticket upgrade! Food and drink specials will be available at Shots with free hot dogs & $3 beers at Shots from 4pm-5pm and live music by Black & Tenn is open for all from 5:30pm. The first 10,000 fans receive free drawstring book bag courtesy of the St. Petersburg Times. After the game, the fun continues with the opportunity to get Up Close and Personal on the field which is open for kids to run drills. All fans can get player autographs and meet Storm Dawg and the Storm Dancers. Visit www.tampabaystorm.com for more details.

The Hillsborough County Environmental Protection Commission is hosting their annual Clean Air Fair at Poe Plaza on Thursday, May 6 from 11:30am – 1:30pm. Browse environmental and community exhibits while enjoying free refreshments and entertainment. During the event, the Tampa BayCycle campaign and CityBike Tampa are sponsoring free bike safety clinics at 12:30pm and 1:15pm.

Metropolitan Ministries' Annual Bridge Builders Benefit will be held on May 8th beginning at 8:00 p.m. in the Carol Morsani Hall at the David A. Straz, Jr. Center for Performing Arts. The event will include a live appearance by Leigh Anne and Collins Tuohy, the real-life adoptive mother and sister who inspired the Academy Award-nominated film, the Blind Side. The Tuohys will share their story of adopting Michael Oher, then a homeless team from a broken home, and guiding him to fulfill his potential as an NFL football star. Learn how they changed his life, and how he changed theirs. Proceeds will go toward funding Metropolitan Ministries’ Uplift U Self-Sufficiency Program for homeless families, teens and children. Tickets are on sale at www.strazcenter.org starting at $35.00. For information on exclusive benefits available for sponsorships and large groups, call Janet Pantaleo at (813) 209-1267.

You can find cool events on downtown’s own online events calendar! Click here to find out what’s taking place when and get out to have fun.

Hillsborough County Commissioners will hold a public hearing on the proposed country-wide transit referendum on May 13 at 6 p.m. at the All Peoples Life Center at 6105 E. Sligh Avenue. The commissioners will hold the public hearing before they consider formally adopting the documents that will place the referendum on the November ballot. The referendum is expected to call for a one cent transit surtax to fund a comprehensive transportation plan that includes transit and non-transit projects such as light rail, bus service expansion, roadways, intersections and supporting projects.

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