Remembering Glen Cross

Glen Cross was the kind of man who was equally at ease negotiating a deal in a suit downtown as he was hopping into the driver's seat of a bulldozer.

The soft-spoken Tampa developer who loved racing cars in his spare time was killed in a car crash July 24 in North Carolina. He was 72.

With longtime business partner Hinks Shimberg, Cross is most famous for amassing 3,000 acres in southeastern Hillsborough County for a residential community that would eventually be called Fishhawk Ranch.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, residential and commercial developers didn't favor southeast Hillsborough County, targeting instead northern Hillsborough and Pasco counties. A contrarian, Cross held onto the land along the Interstate-75 corridor through the recession of the early 1990s. His vision ultimately became reality when development started at Fishhawk in 1997.

Although he avoided the limelight, Cross loved to show off the Fishhawk land to anyone who asked. He ferried newspaper reporters in his SUV, bounding through the property on dirt roads while giant bulldozers cleared paths for new roads. He would stop to chat and shake hands with construction workers.

Besides Fishhawk, the Indiana native developed and built homes in the Carrollwood and Town and Country areas of Tampa.