The Trolly Stop Tampa Bay

Franklin St. has always been an interesting place in Tampa, as it is probably one of the few places that has faced several proposals and design tweaks during the latter part of the 20^th century. Probably the most recent enormous improvement in the past 20 years was the streetcar stop at Franklin and Whiting (going further back, the old monorail). While we could have spent several days piecing a massive timeline from 60 years ago to now on Franklin Street improvement proposals, we will present an article from 1971, including images of other previous visions from that era. Before we get to that, let’s talk about what happened earlier this month when Tampa Downtown Partnership received funding for their for their own vision of Franklin Street.

A $6 million fund was awarded to the Partnership during a November 14th CRA meeting. The plan included earlier efforts from public surveys, street mural improvements, signage improvements and workshops from around 2020.

Despite the Partnership’s efforts and previous known hardships with Franklin Street to maintain a healthy business frontage and pedestrian activity from Old Water Street to Palm Avenue, this latest pitch seemed lackluster. While we were not at hearing, we will use images from Krtizer’s TBBJ article as a quick reference.

While shipping containers are arguably, ideal place-making elements, we hope that this is merely a transition to something more permanently cool. This idea has seen overuse around Tampa and the Bay Area, such as now at  The Krate, and even in Winter Haven, where someone proposed and built a Jimmy John’s drive-through made to look like a shipping container.

We don’t get what has been proposed with the sidewalks (they are already widest and most walkable we have in Downtown) and would rather see urban bioswales with seating and, of course, anything but palm trees as shade is in demand for hotter months in Tampa.

While it appears that these improvements are confined to the southern portion of Franklin Street, we would have preferred to see funding extended to the north end at Scott Street and beyond. Right now, the only pedestrian improvement is a dark and scary FDOT proposed sidewalk linking the Riverwalk to near Franklin. Because Kay Street is essentially a highway ramp to I-275, walking along it to Franklin is a very unnerving experience as cars are already up to 40 mph after turning from Florida Ave.

To sum it up, Franklin Street is being strangled by not only 10 or so surface parking lots but horrific intersections around I-275. Allowing these lots to remain or merely slapping paint on bad intersections and calling it a day while focusing on the southern end of Franklin will not really transform this ‘yellow brick road.’ We are not saying Franklin Street deserves no improvements, but planting palm trees, landing shipping containers and proposing seemingly invisible sidewalk improvements really won’t make a strategic difference in the long term. We could certainly see $6 million go into improving access conditions in the north end, especially where elderly people and families reside, including where our largest Transit Hub is located.

Now let’s talk about an example proposal from the 70s in the Tampa Tribune’s “RESTORING THE HUMAN TOUCH TO DOWNTOWN,” an article in 1971. Weeks ago, from this article’s publishing, Mayor Greco worked with the Central Florida Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) that “displayed a photograph (as an Tribune Ad) of Franklin Street looking north. The photograph was paired with an artist’s rendering of the same scene with modifications – modifications which transformed the distracting and dissonant appearance of Franklin Street into a pleasant and unified tree-lined boulevard.” AIA’s ad garner over “200 responses,” to propel this vision further with exclamations of “Great!” to “Amen!” from readers.

Mayor Greco wanted to hype up Tampa’s riverfront feature and felt that improvements along Franklin would land Tampa in national ranks, “Our riverfront could be one of the most beautiful in the country. I think it is extremely important and essential that the city be attractive in every respect. There’s been a great deal of inquiry about downtown building lately.”

At the time there was “no centralized authority” to the city’s downtown beautification programs and design standards were lacking per architect Joe Chillura. The city was investing $100,000 (nearly $800,000 in 2024) around the upcoming Holiday Inn between the riverfront and Franklin.

Ideas ranged from establishing continuity to address a “blinking jumble where it’s hard to identify a particular (business) logo in the neon haze,” to establishing building canopy sizes. Chillura desired “big trees,” and “not little things that would grow up in a few years.”

Transportation improvements were interesting as well. There was a call to eliminate on-street parking as Henry Orr, Tampa’s Traffic Engineer at the time, felt that it would “widen traffic lanes as well as widen the sidewalks.”

Article images below.

Here are other Franklin Street images and proposals from 70s too.

The Tampa Times 1975

The Tampa Times 1977

The Tampa Tribune 1970

Much like today, the city center was competing against shopping centers in suburbia, which was growing intensely because of the new I-275 and I-4 interstate through downtown Tampa had been in operation less than a decade ago from the article’s time. It is a shame none of the architects or Mayor Greco realize how much the interstate drained human presence in our downtown area. What is interesting from this old article was the need to have big trees which wouldn’t have palms and the connection from the riverfront into downtown. It seems after all these decades, the partnership still managed to miss the mark.