Development SOG

I stumbled on some surprising info on the www.southtownpark.com website today. According to the site plan, the developer of this gated community thinks there is future retail development slated for Tanker Way south of Interbay. For those familiar, or unfamiliar, with the gates at MacDill AFB, Tanker Way is where they relocated the old Manhattan gate. Then they promptly closed it to all but commercial truck traffic. Despite the husband's attempts to get this changed to allow cyclist and pedestrian traffic, it looks like the powers that be are going to stick by their position that it would be too hard to manage checking the hordes of cyclists and runners who would be mingling with the truck traffic. So, I'm wondering who would be interested in developing a retail strip on Tanker Way when it is essentially a dead end except for trucks, which primarily haul jet fuel.

Not that a little retail could hurt. Port Tampans are pretty united in their desire for some commerical development in the old city. A rumor that Publix might build on Westshore across from Casa Bella is persistent, but probably just wishful thinking. Can't say I'd mind being able to walk to a grocery store, but a couple restaurants and a coffee shop would be nice too.

Took a detour after my last trip to the post office and discovered that LIST group has sold its property on Prescott to Keystone. Looks like instead of townhouses there will be single family homes. Keystone has done a nice job on Sparkman near Interbay with two bungalow style homes that make a nice buffer between an ugly apartment building and the homes for which some Port Tampans are seeking historic designation. Gaspar Properties has cleared and filled its lots on Prescott but unless you count having the porta potty delivered "progress," there isn't much going on. Castillo homes has 3 of its 4 houses in South Tampa Square under roof but Inland, which sold the lots to Castillo, took the floorplans and prices off their website. When I called Sara, the sales person, she claimed they would begin selling this month and prices would start around $529,000. I guess that would seem like a bargain to anyone who has looked at Westshore Yacht Club but when I first started looking at Inland this time last year they were priced from $335,000.

98 Degrees

People tend to think you're crazy when you leave Tampa to go to Minnesota for a vacation in February, but we did it. The husband and daughter had never been in Minnesota in the winter and he thinks he wants to live there full time when he retires from the Army (whenever that turns out to be). Of course they had a freak "heat" wave while he was there and he didn't even see temps below zero. Daughter and I left a few days after he had to be back to work so we enjoyed a temp of -23 when we left on Friday. It was 75 when we pulled into Port Tampa. All the way down we'd been pulling for 77 degrees to have a nice even 100 degree temperature difference, but I guess 98 degrees is remarkable enough. It's easy to forget how big our country is until you drive from 70 miles south of the Canadian border to Tampa in 3 days. Just when I think we've malled, and chain stored, and homogenized things to death I remember how, in a way, place still defines us. Maybe it's not the place, but the weather that says who we are.

Post Office Plaque

I was in the Port Tampa Post Office the other day, despite it's ever diminishing hours, and noticed that the kind of quaint mid-century modern building has the typical dedication plaque in the lobby. What struck me is that it is the only federal building I can remember with President Kennedy's name inscribed as the sitting president. There are lots of things named after him, Kennedy Blvd. here in Tampa, the Special Warfare Center at Ft. Bragg. He was the president who allowed the "Green Berets" to wear their green berets. I wonder how many others might be out there, not too many since he was only in office for 1,000 days. What would a bird watcher style life list of Kennedy dedicated buildings look like?

Teddy Roosevelt Was Here

At the corner of Interbay and Westshore is a small, rather tired looking, park which is actually Tampa's very own "Spanish-American War Memorial Park." The Port Tampa Women's Club is raising money for a major renovation of the park and the renderings are really lovely but I wonder if there will be room in the budget for plaques, lots of them. Like Sarah Vowell, I am a big fan of plaques. I like knowing about the Revolutionary War encampment down the hill from my old house in Virginia. I miss the plaque describing the beach of glacial lake Agassiz, the geological phenomena that made eastern North Dakota flat as a pancake and now provides the gental rise in elevation that makes western Minnesota a great place for wind farms. Anyway, I hardly think a simple refurbishment of the current historical marker would be enough for this little park. The kids who ride their bikes and skateboards on our narrow street should know that Teddy Roosevelt slept in a tent at Picnic Island Park. They should know that there was a "Spanish-American War." Though, in this hemisphere at least, it had so much more to do with Cuba than Spain, and more than a century later our nation is still arguing about how to handle Cuba. What was once the port of debarkation for the Rough Riders is now the source of the concrete superstructure for the elevated expressway to Brandon. The huge concrete pillars are so long they need to be steered on city streets from both the front and rear. If you've ever seen a convoy of these assembled for delivery you'd think they merit a mention too. We need lots of plaques.

For the best writing ever done in support of commemorative plaques for even the seemingly inconsequential read Vowell's Assassination Vacation.