HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — The small community of Palmetto Beach in Tampa is preparing to undergo a major facelift.
The City of Tampa received millions of dollars in federal funding for the project, dubbed Pathways to Palmetto. The neighborhood is one of the oldest and most historic areas in the city.
Neighbors told ABC Action News that they are ecstatic Palmetto Beach is getting funding and attention.
“This is a wonderful neighborhood, but it’s been underfunded,” Dennise Reddeick said.
Reddeick has been part of the community since 1974. She owns 22nd Street Coffee Shop and hears the issues people in the area deal with on a daily basis.
“Little things like the sidewalks, the street lights, the seawall, all of this infrastructure has been neglected,” Reddeick said.
The city is working to fix those issues with a $24.7 million federal grant, so Palmetto Beach residents can expect some major upgrades.
“I think one of the major items is reconstruction of the seawall," Whit Remer with the City of Tampa said.
Flooding is an issue neighbors deal with. The city said reconstruction of the seawall will help with that problem.
The project focuses on Bermuda Boulevard. It will add a trail so people can walk along the water, landscape enhancements and pedestrian crossings.
The city also plans to resurface and narrow the roads.
“People just race down this street, so it is not the safest,” Christy Holt said.
Holt raised her four kids in a home just off Bermuda Boulevard, and her top priority is safety on the road—especially after a car crashed into her fence a few weeks ago.
Luckily, she and her kids were not in the yard at the time of the crash. She told me she thinks this project will help improve safety for her family and other kids in the neighborhood.
I have not heard much pushback on this project, except for one Facebook comment. The user was upset that they would no longer be able to sit along the seawall. I reached out for comment but did not hear back.
The city is working to finalize the project. It will take about five years to complete.
"This is a dangerous situation."
A Pasco county resident says county contractors left a project on her property unfinished, leading to huge holes in the yard of her rental home, including one that swallowed her electrical transformer.
