TAMPA, Fla. — A plan is in the works to make downtown Tampa cooler — literally.
Developers working on the Water Street Tampa project are planning to drop temperatures in the area so it’s more comfortable for people to enjoy being outside.
“I think it’ll give another option for people living, working and visiting nearby. We don’t have a lot of places that are pleasant year round in Tampa,” said C.E.O. of Strategic Property Partners James Nozar.
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This project includes 56 acres of downtown, nearly doubling the size of the area. On 13 of those acres developers are building parks, public spaces, and green roofs.
The goal of the project is to create a more walkable downtown; redesigning the neighborhood to keep people cool.
Developers plan to do this by adding many shaded spaces with mature trees and greenery, quality air monitoring, installing light color pavers and adding water refilling stations around the district.
“All those efforts are going into making the site much more pervious, much cooler from an environmental standpoint,” said Nozar.
Water Street will also have traffic calming elements, bike lanes and on-street retail.
Developers want to transform Tampa’s downtown waterfront and be an example for other neighborhoods to show them how to create a place that can beat the heat.
“We started all the infrastructure and roadway work almost 3 years ago, we have seven buildings under construction today, another five will start in the coming three months,” said Nozar.
Some of this project will start to wrap up next year and most of it will be complete around 2021.
