Developer returns with plan for Tampa neighborhood that fought off apartments last year

About eight months after plans for a major multifamily development in a South Tampa neighborhood was killed, leaving neighbors cheering, the developers are back.

This time the plan is to build 87 town homes at 200 S. Hoover Blvd. on the site of an existing office complex, Mariner Square Park in Tampa’s Beach Park neighborhood.

The updated plans are a far cry from what was originally proposed, but if history is any indication, neighbors are unlikely to be happy again.

The development at 200 S. Hoover Blvd., as originally proposed, would have brought a 392-unit, six-story building; 16 two-story town houses; and a seven-story parking garage. The developer was asking the city to change the zoning from residential office to planned development. If approved, it would have sat next to an existing apartment building, Mosaic Westshore, and within sight of several other condo and apartment complexes, two hotels, town homes and several office buildings.

According to a site plan submitted to the city’s planning department, the new town house development would be made up of three- and four-story town homes with a clubhouse in the center of the complex.

The property is currently zoned for office and the developer, Wisco 7 in Tampa, is asking for it to be rezoned residential.

The site plan and other documents were submitted to the city May 4 and are currently under review.

According to signage on the property, developers are also asking to “reduce tree retention from 50% to 0%.”

How active nearby neighbors will be in opposing the new development is still unclear. An organized group of residents calling themselves Save Beach Park fought the last proposal online, with signs and, most importantly, in city meetings.

They argued that bringing too many apartments into the area would cause overcrowding at local schools and on nearby streets.

Proponents, though, say growth in an area already amid a transformation is unavoidable, especially when condominiums, apartments and office complexes, as well as heavy traffic, already exist in the neighborhood. 

The Beach Park neighborhood is off Westshore and Kennedy Boulevards, near the on-ramp to the Howard Frankland Bridge and within walking distance to WestShore Plaza. Along with offices, condominiums and apartments, the neighborhood, like much of South Tampa, is being transformed from one of small ranchers housing longtime residents to one of newly constructed multimillion-dollar homes more-often-than-not often housing newcomers.