Tampa Riverwalk Steps into the Limelight

By Mary Kelley Hoppe

Revitalization plans for Tampa’s downtown waterfront got their biggest boost yet in February when demolition crews tore down the Tampa Museum of Art on Ashley Drive and cleared adjacent sites, opening up views to the Hillsborough River.

Construction begins this year on a new 66,000-square-foot art museum designed by San Francisco architect Stanley Saitowitz. The art museum and a new children’s museum next door will be the focal point of an expanded and renovated Curtis Hixon Park and 2.2–mile Riverwalk that will extend from the Channelside District past the art museum and Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center before terminating inTampa Heights just north of downtown.

For Tampa, it’s an opportunity to showcase a treasure long hidden from view by office towers and buildings that have obstructed access to the waterfront.

“We’re focusing on this part of the Riverwalk to educate people about the importance of the river and the need to take better care of it,” says Chuck Walter, the city’s stormwater director.

As part of that effort, the city is advancing its own cleanup measures. Stormwater scrubbers called sediment traps are being installed along the waterfront to filter out trash and pollutants that flow into the river through storm sewers. Maintenance crews will vacuum out the catchment boxes periodically as sediments build up.
Additionally, the city hopes to use the area to test the effectiveness of various natural treatment options, including concrete reef balls that attract oysters and other marine life. Oysters are filter feeders that cleanse the water by taking in silt and spitting out clear water. Mature oysters can filter as much as three gallons of water an hour. Reef balls have already been installed along Bayshore Boulevard and in neighborhood canals in South West Shore.

Plans for a pedestrian walkway along the river have been around since the mid-1970s but lacked focus and funding. Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio reenergized the effort with the development of a masterplan in 2006 that put renewed emphasis on opening up the waterfront to residents and visitors and adding public amenities, art, interpretative elements, shops and restaurants. The city has hired EDAW, an international planning, landscape architecture and urban design firm to complete the plan.

“We’ve done a lot of the design work but now we’re in the building phase,” says City Riverwalk Director Lee Hoffman.

“Before, we had pieces completed but they were isolated,” adds Hoffman, who says the focus now is on making connections and completing the stretch from Curtis Hixon Park to the new Tampa History Center under construction near Channelside.

In April, the city will celebrate the opening of an important link. With the completion of a section running under the Platt Street Bridge, visitors will be able to walk southeast along the waterfront for more than a half-mile, past the Convention Center to Cotanchobee Park just beyond the Marriott Waterside Hotel.

But the Riverwalk is poised to make its grandest gesture just south of Curtis Hixon Park, where it will arc out over the water as a floating element that passes beneath the Kennedy Boulevard Bridge before returning to land. In front of the seawall, underwater artificial reefs backlit with LED lights will provide habitat for small fish. Solar panels mounted in canopies along the Riverwalk will power the lights and projectors flashing images across a wall buttressing Kiley Park. Visitors walking beneath the Kennedy Bridge will be treated to live video feeds from the Florida Aquarium.

The city hopes to have this segment of the Riverwalk completed in 2010. A waterfront restaurant is slated for the south end of Curtis Hixon Park.

“Every city has its special places,” says Hoffman. “When you think of Tampa, we’ve lacked that. What this does is make the downtown much smaller by linking all of these cultural institutions and parks together and providing a wonderful venue for the people who live and work here.

“It’s programming that really makes this come alive,” adds Hoffman, who will be working closely with city arts staff, downtown groups and the Friends of the Riverwalk to ensure a steady lineup of festivals, concerts and activities.

Future phases of the Riverwalk include a public pier extending out from the west end of the Convention Center. Construction of the northern terminus of the Riverwalk will be part of the Tampa Heights residential development and paid for by the developer. The city is financing about 40% of the funding for the $40-million project through local gas taxes, with the balance coming from private corporations and gifts.

“We need to capitalize on one of our best assets,” says Hoffman, “and that’s the waterfront.”