Urban Advisor

Before we continue with 34th Street, I wanted to put this idea out there...

Pinellas County leaders are concerned about increasing employment opportunities for its residents. One way leaders see to prevent this is to prevent (where possible) underutilized, vacant or abandoned industrial and commercial properties from being redeveloped into residential uses, usually multifamily developments. Also we have the Dome Industrial District the city of St. Pete is building up. One issue is the need to increase the density of jobs while limiting the footprint of developments. One way to do this could be the construction shared parking facilities for industrial buildings. Instead of each having their own surface lot, one parking garage could be built to serve multiple buildings. In the case of the Dome Industrial Park, a garage could be built along 22nd Street, with ground floor retail fronting 22nd Street of course, and a circulator to transport employees and visitors to the various businesses in the park. In central Pinellas, garages could be strategically built in various locations, also as mixed-use facilities with ground-floor retail, and circulators could transport employees and visitors to the businesses. Shared parking could also be allowed in office parks such as Carillon and Gateway Centre as a means to increase the amount of employment in these locations. Municipalities could build the garages, and businesses could pay to reserve spaces in the garages. Additional parking fees would also cover operational costs for the circulators. Ultimately, shared parking facilities would open up additional land for (re)development, and create the greater employment density that city and county leaders desire, and that would make the city and county more desirable to businesses and residents.

I am sure this has been done or suggested before, but I cannot find any record of it. At any rate, I think this would work well for both the city of St. Pete and Pinellas County.

There has been a lot of regional cooperation going on in terms of promoting the region for economic development. Tampa Bay Partnership and others are doing a lot of studies and really pushing for a shared regional economic development plan. I think it is time to take it a step beyond studies and meetings, and developing a real framework for growing the region's economy using a concrete planning tool I like to call the Tampa Bay Employment Zone.

This zone would be the focus of economic and employment growth for the entire Tampa Bay region. It is centralized around the these thoroughfares: Ulmerton Road, I-275, I-4 and I-75. This is the area where people would go to work, and where employers would want to locate.

Tampa Bay Employment Zone Area

The Zone would be devided into sub-zones, each with a different focus as follows:

Sub-zone 1: Central Pinellas/Ulmerton Road would focus mainly on medical manufacturing and wharehousing

Sub-zone 2: Gateway/Carillon would focus mainly on finance, insurance and other corporate offices

Sub-zone 3: Westshore would also focus on finance, insurance and other corporate offices

Sub-zone 4: West Tampa would focus on entrepreneurial/small businesses with a focus on tech start-ups

Sub-zone 5: Tampa City Center would continue to be the focus for banking, legal services, government and corporate headquaters

Sub-zone 6: Ybor City would focus on entrepreneurial/small businesses like West Tampa, but with a more arts and entertainment focus

Sub-zone 7: East Tampa would focus on wharehousing and distribution with its proximity to the port and rail yards

Sub-zone 8: The I-75 Corridor would be the focus for call center development

Sub-zone 9: The I-4 East Corridor would focus on "green" technology

While these would be the focus for the sub-zones, it would not preclude other types of businesses from locating within a certain sub-zone. For instance, a call center may locate in Sub-zone 2, or a small accountinig firm from locating in Sub-zone 4. All municipalities with the zone would adopt this zone as part of their planning and economic development strategies, formally incorporate them into their comprehensive plans and zoning codes, and join forces for joint incentives (as appopriate) to cultivate existing businesses and attract new businesses to the Zone.

This Zone would make other planning initiatives, such as mass transit, even more effective. It would also help generate some much needed excitement and buzz for a region not really known for doing so. Further, it would prevent the cannibalizing that often occurs when cities within a region all compete for the same businesses, as everyone benefits through a diversified economy and increased access to these jobs through transportation improvements designed specifically for this purpose.