Jeff Vinik addresses future of Tampa at innovation summit

For the future of Tampa Bay, look 700 miles northwest. 

That's Nashville. Tampa Bay Lightning owner and prominent real estate developer Jeff Vinik cited the fast-growing country music capital favorably in a recent presentation before area business leaders. That especially includes transportation, in which Nashville is poised to spend $5.4 billion on a massive public transit overhaul — featuring an extensive light-rail system — if a tax increase is approved in a referendum next month.

“Think of the way Nashville has emerged as a great place where people want to be,” he says. “We can accomplish that same thing, but we are behind by 10-15 years. If you don’t want to have a car [in the Tampa Bay region], you shouldn’t have to have a car.”

Vinik was one of several speakers at the second annual Synapse Innovation Summit, held March 28-29 at Amalie Arena. Most of the presentations had a similar theme: how Tampa can become the best version of itself.  

Recalling a recent Q&A session with a group of students at Jesuit High School in Tampa, Vinik also issued a note of caution.

“They’re all sponges,” he says. “They wanted to learn about business, about my career path, about how to hire good people … and the future here in Tampa Bay. This is what I said to them: ‘You guys are going to be graduating from Jesuit in the next one to three years; you’re going to be graduating from college four years after that. This what you need to know: If two-thirds of the students in this room, two-thirds of the talent in this room, after you graduate from college don’t stay in or come back to Tampa Bay, then we are failing as a community.’”