Cool Stuff in Other Cities

[Uncommon]

6 hours ago, spenser1058 said:

“What’s the Matter With Tampa Bay”? Can it even be fixed?

All the problems with the Rays:

https://deadspin.com/what-s-the-matter-with-tampa-bay-1832565973/amp

From Deadspin 

Hopefully the Rays move to Montreal and MLB awards Orlando a baseball franchise, though baseball is kind of a dying sport among young people, especially in the target demographic.

[spenser1058]

Florida’s tallest roller coaster, Tigris, is almost set to open at Busch Gardens Tampa.

It’s 150 feet tall.

http://amp.fox13news.com/news/local-news/thrill-seekers-prepare-florida-s-tallest-launch-roller-coaster-tigris-is-almost-ready

From FOX13 

[spenser1058]

A great story about a developer with deep roots in St. Pete who goes out of his way to keep the best things about his hometown instead of just bulldozing them to maximize profits:

https://www.tampabay.com/business/home-grown-investor-doesnt-want-to-see-st-pete-turn-into-another-fort-lauderdale-20190214/

From the St. Pete Times

More often than not, there is another way that preserves the heart and soul of our neighborhoods.

Edited February 17, 2019 by spenser1058

[spenser1058]

It’s Tampa’s turn... FDOT is now making plans for a massive redo of the I-275 interchange at West Shore.

Following that will come an even bigger headache with a work on the downtown interchange.

https://www.tampabay.com/transportation/state-transportation-officials-set-sights-on-new-west-shore-interchange-20190218/?template=amp

From the St Pete Times 

[orlandouprise]

 

On ‎2‎/‎12‎/‎2019 at 9:50 PM, Uncommon said:

Hopefully the Rays move to Montreal and MLB awards Orlando a baseball franchise, though baseball is kind of a dying sport among young people, especially in the target demographic.

why not just move the Rays to Orlando?

[Uncommon]

41 minutes ago, orlandouprise said:

 

why not just move the Rays to Orlando?

I’m talking 10-15 years down the line. Rays aren’t staying in Tampa for another decade+ and then all of a sudden moving to Orlando. Plus, with their ghastly history of attendance issues, I thought they want anything to do with Florida. It seems possible that they move to another region entirely and then 10 years from now when Orlando has close to 3.5M people, MLB awards a franchise to the largest metro area without a team in a 200 mile radius.

[spenser1058]

For a number of reasons (as discussed in the article), Florida’s baseball teams (both Miami and St. Pete) haven’t set the world on fire in terms of attendance.

Even when the teams were approaching World Series caliber and when a new stadium affected the calculus (Miami), it hasn’t moved the needle much.

I believe the demographics for baseball skew older. While Florida is awash in retirees, they tend to come here with fierce loyalties to wherever they came from. The fact spring training is so successful in Florida highlights that fact.

Those retirees seem unwilling to transfer their loyalties from the White Sox or Pirates or whomever to the Rays or Marlins. That’s not unique to sports - it affects all sorts of things here from schools to the arts to political allegiances.

Orlando’s demographics tend to be even younger, although older folks from The Villages and Lake County could make the trip. Only problem is, they could have gone to St. Pete also, but didn’t.

A good indicator of how well an MLB team would do is to look at how well their farm teams fare. Places like Nashville have done ok with the minor leagues. Orlando, otoh, crashed and burned with the Twins (and others) once the theme parks came along.

That brings up a big issue in Florida: there are simply too many other things to do here.

If an MLB team wants to come to Orlando, fine. However, given the background, I’d be unwilling to spend any public money on it.

Edited February 18, 2019 by spenser1058

[Uncommon]

In all honesty and putting all obvious hopes aside for Orlando, I don’t see expansion happening any time soon. Baseball is simply a dying sport, replaced in popularity by the NFL and the NBA. Even the NHL has been on the come-up recently and MLS is set to boom, especially with the younger and Latin population influx in the United States. The days of baseball stadiums packed with 45,000 fans is over, unless we’re talking about metro areas with established baseball teams. MLB does fine in New York, LA, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, St. Louis, Houston etc. Most everyone else is struggling though.

So poor attendance is not problem unique to Florida, though it’s most glaring there. California for example has just as much fun stuff to do as Florida, but the Angels, Dodgers, and Giants all do very well for themselves (San Diego and Oakland are different stories, although they’re still much better than the Florida teams). So it can’t be that there is too much to do in Florida. It may be transplants, it may be the type of people Florida attracts; hell, it may be the weather, but for some reason Florida fails where Texas, California, and New York mostly succeed.

Anyway, my point is if 20,000 fans is the new normal, Orlando can do that in a decade. It can probably do that now just off novelty alone. Orlando has always supported its major league franchises pretty well, and even though transplants are an issue here, Magic and Lion games always sell, if for no other reason than the transplants attend to root against Orlando. In 2030, when Orlando has close to 400,000 in its city limits and 3.5M in its metro, if expansion is an option, Orlando will be strongly considered.

[JFW657]

Who wants to make human barbeque out of themselves sitting in a sports stadium in Florida in July or August?

I went to a Bucs game over at the old Tampa Stadium (The Big Sombrero) one year in September and the next day on my face and forearms I looked like a lobster.

[spenser1058]

Just now, JFW657 said:

Who wants to make human barbeque out of themselves sitting in a sports stadium in Florida in July or August?

I went to a Bucs game over at the old Tampa Stadium (The Big Sombrero) one year in September and the next day on my face and forearms I looked like a lobster.

We went to a Starship/Whitney Houston/Beach Boys concert there for 4th of July, 1986. Talk about broiling like an Angus....

[HankStrong]

3 minutes ago, JFW657 said:

Who wants to make human barbeque out of themselves sitting in a sports stadium in Florida in July or August?

I went to a Bucs game over at the old Tampa Stadium (The Big Sombrero) one year in September and the next day on my face and forearms I looked like a lobster.

I went to an evening preseason game @ RJS in August and still managed to cook more than I wanted in the well-past peak of day sun.

[spenser1058]

The Cross-Bay Ferry’s ridership is up significantly in its second season between St. Pete and Tampa:

https://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2019/02/24/winner-and-losers-of-the-week-feb-24-edition/?template=amp

From the St Pete Times

Now, if we can just get Volusia to pony up and restart the water taxi between NSB and Daytona.

[spenser1058]

Four big Tampa Bay projects dcluley didn’t tell us about after his last trip home  <g>:

https://www.tampabay.com/florida/2019/02/27/here-are-four-big-tampa-bay-projects-you-might-have-seen-but-probably-know-nothing-about/

From the St Pete Times 

[spenser1058]

The future was just a little too bright in Tampa. It seems the reflective glass on the new USF med school was blinding pilots at a nearby airport on Davis Islands.They’ve sense figured out a way to remedy it.

I feel their pain. When I worked in the Copper Whopper, my office was often hit by the glare from duPont Centre (I forget what bank name it had back then).

https://www.tampabay.com/business/usf-takes-shine-off-its-new-water-street-tampa-med-school-building-after-glare-hits-pilots-20190304/?template=amp

From the St Pete Times 

[spenser1058]

Interesting to see an Amtrak promotion with Disneyland and the pic of the Pacific Surfliner shows a great looking train.

All aboard, America - All Aboard Amtrak!

https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/california/All-Aboard-for-an-Amtrak-Disneyland-Deal-Toot-Toot-506685881.html?amp=y

From NBC San Diego

[spenser1058]

This is interesting- supply has finally caught up with demand for downtown Tampa apartments, resulting in a 4% drop in rent.

That seems not to be the case so far in downtown Orlando and downtown St Pete.

https://www.tampabay.com/business/rents-are-falling-in-downtown-tampa-but-going-up-in-other-parts-of-tampa-bay-20190319/?template=amp

From the St Pete Times 

[spenser1058]

“If you bulldoze it, they will come...” This failed redevelopment strategy is alive and well in Jacksonville, according to The Jaxson:

https://www.thejaxsonmag.com/article/so-jax-may-be-the-only-city-to-demolish-its-landing-page-3/

We’ve certainly seem evidence of that in Orlando (the duPont Centre II site lay fallow for 25 years before we got a mediocre apartment complex), but mostly we’ve learned to have something planned (whether it is an improvement is secondary) to replace the destroyed history before the bulldozers roll nowadays.

[Uncommon]

Poor Jacksonville. I so want it to be the next trendy city, like Nashville or Austin or Charlotte, but man that place is a disaster. It’s got good bones though, so it’s just a matter of time and attention from a mayor or investor to lift Jax up. I thought Shad Khan would be to it like Vinik is to Tampa, but all of his plans so far have not come to fruition. Sad, the city has sooo much potential.

[Dale]

6 minutes ago, Uncommon said:

Poor Jacksonville. I so want it to be the next trendy city, like Nashville or Austin or Charlotte, but man that place is a disaster. It’s got good bones though, so it’s just a matter of time and attention from a mayor or investor to lift Jax up. I thought Shad Khan would be to it like Vinik is to Tampa, but all of his plans so far have not come to fruition. Sad, the city has sooo much potential.

I too yearn for Jax to take the next step. It seemed ready to take off prior to the recession. The river is a marvelous setting. FYI: Lem Turner,  of Lem Turner Rd fame, was my ggg uncle.

[spenser1058]

Riverside/Avondale, San Marco, Ortega and now even Springfield are wonderfully restored gems that are the pride of preservationists everywhere.

Downtown, otoh, is a disaster.

Why? The neighborhoods in the first paragraph were restored organically, block by block, by people with concern for what they were doing.

Downtown (and most of Southside, for that matter) has been left by the city fathers to developers with grand schemes that do everything but ask what people want. Instead, it’s “what will net me the biggest profit?”

Someday, we’ll learn...

[spenser1058]

Millionaire David Straz in Tampa mayoral debate: “I won’t take $160,000 salary for mayor.”

Front-runner Jane Castor: “I wouldn’t either if I drove a Bentley.”

These guys (and gals) who want to buy elections have worked out so well, after all.

[spenser1058]

Making downtown Tampa transit free to patrons leads to huge increase in use:

https://www.tampabay.com/transportation/in-tampa-and-st-pete-new-riders-flock-to-free-downtown-transit-lines-20190325/?template=amp

From the St Pete Times 

[spenser1058]

Tampa is poised to elect the first lesbian mayor of a major Southeastern city on April 23. Former police chief Jane Castor is the scion of an influential political family in Florida.

Her opponent is millionaire philanthropist David Straz.

Castor’s possible election is a milestone in Hillsborough County, which has often been outright hostile to the LGBTQ community.

https://www.tampabay.com/tampa/jane-castor-could-make-history-as-tampa-bays-first-openly-gay-mayor-20190328/?template=amp

From the St Pete Times 

[spenser1058]

Here in Florida, the public schools are their own constitutional entity subject to state guidelines. 

OCPS is really not affected by the City of Orlando or the Orange County Commission except issues like zoning.

So it’s fascinating to take a look at the interplay between Nashville’s Metro government (which controls the purse strings) and Metro Schools.

If you’ve ever wondered what Mayors Buddy or Demings might do if they had more say about how OCPS runs, this is amazing.

With former OC Mayor Teresa Jacobs now in charge of OCPS and facing her first schools controversy (over redistributing), it’s also of interest to see how her background will play in this new role.

https://amp.tennessean.com/amp/3304196002

From The Tennessean 

[spenser1058]

West Shore and Midtown Tampa exploding with new projects:

https://www.tampabay.com/business/new-hotel-and-office-space-coming-to-west-shore-near-tampa-international-airport-20190402/?template=amp

From the St Pete Times