The Tampa Tribune Loves Bad Downtown Projects

Wayne Garcia asks, "Does the Tribune really believe that a tucked away art museum that isn't doing much to improve its holdings, an ill-conceived Riverwalk and some bushes along Ashley Boulevard are going to transform downtown Tampa??"

This is the same newspaper that said paying needless dollars to bring the USS Forrestal would help bring tourism to downtown. Nevermind that the channel was too shallow or Edwin A. Roberts's conflict of interests. The Trib sold the stadium tax as needed funding for schools and roads. Dangle the carrot and then whack the taxpayers with the stick.

The answer is the Trib loves poorly-conceived pork projects. Whether they will work or not is secondary. The fact that the Tampa Bay Lighting were bankrupt didn't stop Tom McEwen from telling the City Council that the team was financially solvent. Up went the arena for the Lightning. Tom would continue to have the Lightning as a client.

The downtown civic leaders aren't any better. They hired Tom Murphy to help advise on how to downtown Tampa. As Mayor of Pittsburgh, he turned downtown Pittsburgh into a homeless haven. Columnist Eric Heyl documents the good deeds Murphy has done for the downtown district.

The front of the boarded-up G.C. Murphy building might never have received the fresh coat of eye-appealing black paint it sports today.

The long-abandoned Revco drugstore building on Fifth Avenue might never have discovered new life as, er, a long-abandoned Revco drugstore.

The wig stores, nail places and check-cashing marts that sprung up in the Fifth-Forbes Avenue corridor during Murphy's tenure might have fled for tonier suburban locales.

The scent of urine along McMasters Way, the narrow alley linking the panhandlers of Market Square and the nearly deserted Fifth Avenue, might not be nearly so pungent.

There's nothing like the smell of urine in the morning to bring in the tourists. Heyl told a Pittsburgh resident that Murphy was being paid by Tampa because of his downtown rebuilding efforts.

"What development?" said Sherri Schrader. "He didn't do a damned thing."

The city of Tampa and the Trib both know how to back a loser.

Update: A classic Edwin A. Roberts, Jr op-ed on how a used ship would help tourism. I found that Roberts wrote about the Forrestal 24 times. I love Nexis.

Too, we have the good offices of the Tampa Port Authority and its expert staff. And we have exactly the right mayor to cheer on the project. Although understandably determined to keep Tampa's taxpayers safe from any financial liability, in a letter to Tampa's Forrestal group he declares: "I commend all of you for the hard work you have done and are doing to make this endeavor come to pass. My office certainly supports and encourages anything that will bring new visitors and make Tampa more of a destination city. It is unquestionable that the USS Forrestal would add to our economy, employment of our citizens and, I am certain, be a favorite spot for tourists and locals alike.

"I thought it quite interesting to find that we have a location at the Port where the USS Forrestal would fit like a glove. Also, the location could not be more perfect as it would be right between the convention center hotel, the Florida Aquarium, the hockey arena and the great historic district of Ybor City."