Tampa Convention Center
The Tampa Convention Center is a mid-sized convention center located in downtown Tampa, Florida at the mouth of the Hillsborough River. It has views of the city's skyline. Harbour Island is across the eponymous bridge on the other side of the Garrison Channel; the center is connected to the neighboring Channelside District and Ybor City via the TECO Streetcar Line, which has a station across the street. The center encompasses 600,000 square feet in total, it has a 200,000 square feet exhibit hall, a ballroom capable of accommodating over 2,000 guests, 36 meeting rooms that can be adjusted to various sizes. The facility hosts over 300 events per year; the Tampa Convention Center is built on the historical site of Fort Brooke, the original American outpost on Tampa Bay established in 1824. The community of Tampa grew around Fort Brooke through two wars with the Seminole Indians and the American Civil War; the post was decommissioned by the United States Army in 1883 and the land was sold for private use.
The former location of the fort was used for various industrial and commercial purposes until the late 1980s, when it was cleared to make way for a new convention center to replace Tampa's aging Curtis Hixon Hall. Construction began in early 1989, with the city of Tampa paying the $140 million cost by issuing municipal bonds, it opened in October 1990. The city's original development plan called for the Tampa Convention Center to be built concurrently with a large hotel. However, financial difficulties and problems with developers caused this portion of the plan to be delayed until 2000, when the 27-story Tampa Marriott Waterside Hotel, the city's largest, opened less than a block away on Garrison Channel. In 2006, more adjacent lodging was added when a 20-story Embassy Suites hotel opened directly across Franklin Street from the convention center; the newer hotel is connected to the convention center via a skybridge. The Tampa Convention Center was the media center for the 2012 Republican National Convention, held two blocks away at the Tampa Bay Times Forum.
It hosts anime convention MetroCon, as well as the Florida Bar Exam. List of convention centers in the United States Official website
West Tampa
West Tampa is one of the oldest neighborhoods within the city limits of Tampa, United States. It was an independently incorporated city from 1895 until 1925. West Tampa is located west of the Hillsborough River 1 mile from downtown; as of the 2000 census, the district had a population of 22,008. It has been home to one of the highest concentration of Latinos in the city since its founding in 1892. West Tampa was founded in 1892 by Scottish immigrant and local attorney Hugh Macfarlane, who bought 200 acres of forested land with the intention of starting a new development by luring some of the cigar factories and cigar workers from Ybor City, a successful new immigrant community on the northeast side of Tampa. West Tampa's initial growth was stunted by transportation issues; the first cigar factory built in the area was forced to close temporarily because workers refused to ride a ferry across the Hillsborough River to the "wilds" of West Tampa. Macfarlane had built a bridge and connected West Tampa to Tampa's extensive streetcar line by 1894, spurring a period of tremendous growth.
Many of these new residents had not come over from Ybor City. Accordingly, the community was exclusivity Cuban during the first several years of its existence. A gradual influx of Italians and Spaniards from Ybor City made the cultural mix of the two communities more similar over time. West Tampa was incorporated as a city in 1895 with a population of 2,335, making it the 2nd largest Hispanic community in the state. By 1900, it had more inhabitants than Florida's capital city of Tallahassee and was the second largest city in Hillsborough County, behind only Tampa; the neighboring communities combined to produce more hand-rolled cigars than any other locale in the world during the early 20th century, earning Tampa the nickname "Cigar City". The first public library in Hillsborough County, the West Tampa Free Public Library, opened on Howard Avenue in 1914. Construction of the Neo-classical revivalist style brick building was funded with a $17,500 grant from Andrew Carnegie; the West Tampa Library is still in use.
During its incorporated life, West Tampa operated the West Tampa Police Department. It was absorbed by the Tampa Police Department in 1925. One officer was killed in its short history. On July 18, 1920, Patrolman Juan Nales and another officer were walking a man they arrested to jail when the suspect attacked; the suspect fatally shot him. The suspect was subsequently convicted of murder; as the years progressed, the connections between West Tampa and Ybor City grew stronger. Most "Latins" had family and friends in both of the neighboring towns. Many people worked in the other. Ybor City's social clubs held large picnics, baseball games, other events at West Tampa's spacious MacFarlane Park; some of the clubs built elaborate branch locations for their West Tampa members, further uniting the two homogeneous districts. The boundaries between West Tampa and "Anglo Tampa" blurred as the larger city grew west and south until its suburbs bumped against the edges of West Tampa; the process concluded in 1925.
As Ybor City faded and emptied out after World War II, many of its residents moved to West Tampa, making it the largest predominantly Latin neighborhood in town. While the same factors that destroyed Ybor City's cigar industry affected West Tampa, the latter community had enough economic variety to survive when the cigar factories either became mechanized or shut down altogether. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, West Tampa received another large influx of Cuban immigrants as they fled Castro's revolution. With few jobs remaining in the cigar industry by that era, new arrivals found work in various other sectors; as of 2017, the neighborhood has many Colombian cuisine and small Cuban and Puerto Rican eateries and ethnic markets along main roads such as Columbus Drive, Armenia Avenue, Howard Avenue, Main Street, Tampa Bay Boulevard. Most of the large brick cigar factory buildings still stand, but none are still used for their original purpose; some have been renovated and remodeled for office space and other uses, while others have been vacant for years.
A few cigars are still rolled in smaller storefronts. While poverty and urban decay have been problematic issues in West Tampa since the 1970s, the district has garnered renewed interest and appreciation for its history and culture; the area saw increasing levels of investment and new construction beginning in the 2000s. Redevelopment stalled during the 2008 recession, but resumed several years with several projects including new apartments and overhaul of Julian Lane Waterfront Park, demolition of several city blocks of older public housing to be replaced with new townhome construction; the historical boundaries of West Tampa are the Hillsborough River and Rome Avenue to the east, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd to the north, Kennedy Blvd. to the south, Dale Mabry Highway to the west. The West Tampa Historic District encompasses much of this area, Interstate 275, built in the 1960s, runs through the approximate center of the neighborhood; the land area of the district is about 10 square miles.
As of the census of 2000, there are 22,008 people, 9,277 households, 9,908 housing units residing in West Tampa. The racial makeup of
Saint Leo University
Saint Leo University is a private, Roman Catholic liberal arts university established in 1889. Its primary campus is located in Florida, 35 miles north of Tampa in Pasco County; the university is associated with the Holy Name Monastery, a Benedictine convent, Saint Leo Abbey, a Benedictine monastery. The university and the abbey are both named for Pope Leo the Great, bishop of Rome from 440 to 461; the name honors Leo XIII, Pope at the time, Leo Haid abbot of Maryhelp Abbey in North Carolina, now Belmont Abbey, who participated in founding the university and served as its first president. The first Roman Catholic college in Florida, Saint Leo is one of the five largest Catholic colleges in the United States, it enrolls students at the traditional University Campus, at more than 40 education centers and offices, through its Center for Online Learning. University-wide, Saint Leo educates students from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, three U. S. territories, more than 80 countries. As of Spring 2017, total enrollment was 16,207 students, with 2,088 of those at University Campus.
Saint Leo was one of the first American universities to provide distance learning opportunities to students, beginning with educating military men and women in 1973 during the Vietnam era at the height of the anti-war movement. Today it is a leading provider of education to active-duty military members and their families. Saint Leo University offers more than 40 associate and master's degrees, certificate programs and inaugurated its first doctoral program in 2013; as of Fall 2016, the faculty included 219 full-time faculty and 1,157 qualified adjunct faculty members. In 2013, the Saint Leo University Polling Institute was established as a source of nonpartisan data on political opinions and cultural attitudes. Saint Leo traces its history to August 10, 1881, when Edmund F. Dunne, a former chief justice of the Arizona Territory, gained control of 100,000 acres in Florida, he established a Roman Catholic colony in an area, now the city of San Antonio and the town of St. Leo. To accommodate a number of German-speaking colonists, Bishop John Moore of the Diocese of St. Augustine wrote the abbot of Saint Vincent Archabbey in Latrobe, Pennsylvania to request a German-speaking priest.
That request led to the Benedictine monks first arriving in the area. In 1888, Saint Vincent Archabbey transferred control of the colony to Mary Help of Christians Abbey in Belmont, North Carolina. In February 1889, Abbot Leo Haid, OSB, of Maryhelp Abbey accepted a gift from Edmund Dunne of 36 acres on Lake Jovita for the founding of a Benedictine College; that same month, Benedictine nuns arrived from Pennsylvania. On March 11, 1889, they founded Holy Name Monastery. Saint Leo College and Saint Leo Abbey were founded on June 4, 1889. St. Leo’s College, the original name of the institution, opened its doors on September 14, 1890; the first student to arrive was 12 years old. He and six others were enrolled on the first day, the student body grew to 32 for the 1890-1891 school year; the first five students graduated in June 1893 with Master of Accounts degrees. In 1898, before it was legal in Florida for black and white students to attend school together, Saint Leo enrolled a black student—Rudolph Antorcha from Cuba.
Today, he and the welcoming Benedictines are honored with a sculpture titled A Spirit of Belonging, dedicated at University Campus in 2013. Over the years, the school went through a series of varying focuses and name changes: St. Leo’s College then St. Leo Military College, St. Leo College, St. Leo College Preparatory School, Saint Leo College, St. Leo College High School, St. Leo Academy, Benedictine High School, Saint Leo College Preparatory School, Saint Leo College, Saint Leo University. During that time, it served as a military college within three different periods. Saint Leo College Preparatory School operated from 1929 to 1964. In addition, Saint Leo returned to its college roots in 1959 and opened a junior college, with the first junior college graduates earning their associate degrees in 1961; the monks managed both the junior college and the prep school from 1959-64. The Saint Leo College Prep School athletic teams were known as the Lions, their colors were purple and gold; the Saint Leo College teams were known as the Monarchs, using gold as colors.
In 1999, the Saint Leo athletic teams readopted the Lions name. In 2011, Saint Leo University created an anthropomorphic lion mascot named Fritz; the name was a reference to a series Saint Bernard dogs bearing that name, all owned by Father Charles Mohr, who served as the first abbot of Saint Leo Abbey from 1902-31. The Benedictine sisters at Holy Name Monastery, its neighboring community, closed their Holy Name Academy in 1963 and assisted Saint Leo, which transitioned to a four-year program. Saint Leo College conferred its first bachelor's degree on April 1967, on 51 men and 13 women; the college was accredited by the Southern Educational Association that November, retroactive to the degree date. In 1973, the college responded to requests from the armed services to offer degree programs on U. S. military bases. More education centers followed—on military bases, on community college campuses, at stand-alone facilities—in seven states. In 1998, the university's Center for Online Learning was created, allowing students to take classes online from any location.
Since 1959, when the junior college was started, Saint Leo has had nine presidents: Dr. John I. Leonard Rev. Stephen Hermann, OSB Dr. Anthony W. Zaitz Rev. Marion Bowman, OSB Dr. Thom
Tampa Bay History Center
Tampa Bay History Center is a history museum in Tampa, Florida. Exhibits include coverage of the Tampa Bay area's first native inhabitants, Spanish conquistadors, historical figures who shaped the area's history, as well as a reproduction of a 1920s cigar store; the museum is on the waterfront at 801 Old Water Street in Tampa's Channelside District. It opened on January 17, 2009; the History Center building is 60,000 square feet with 25,000 square feet of exhibit space. The Tampa Bay History Center includes three floors of permanent and temporary exhibition space covering 12,000 years of Florida history, with a special focus on Tampa Bay and the Gulf Coast; the History Center has a museum store, the Witt Research Center, a map gallery, an event hall and the Columbia Cafe. The History Center is one of the largest on the west coast of Florida and includes hands-on, kid-friendly activities, as well as cutting edge interactive exhibits and theaters; the Tampa Bay History Center is open daily from 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m.
Regular admission is $12.95 for adults, $10.95 for students and children between the ages of 13 and 17, $7.00 for children ages four to twelve. Hillsborough County was 14 times its present size when it was established by the Florida Territorial Legislature in 1834, its boundaries included all or part of 24 present-day counties, stretching from Ocala to Lake Okeechobee and St. Petersburg to Orlando. In the early 1880s, Tampa residents expressed concern that there was no organized effort to preserve and display local artifacts. In the January 19, 1882, issue of The Sunland Tribune, County Judge J. G. Knapp wrote, "... no time should be lost in snatching the historical artifacts from the waste and death of oblivion. Who shall do it?" Fast forward 100 years: 1986: The Hillsborough County Commission assembles a taskforce to explore the feasibility of creating a regional history museum. 1989: The History Museum of Tampa-Hillsborough County, Inc. a 501 3 not-for-profit, is established by a group of private citizens led by Tampa businessman J. Thomas Touchton.
Mr. Touchton serves as Chairman of the Board of Trustees until 2000. 1993: A small museum space opens in the Shoppes of Harbour Island, showcasing objects from the museum's collection and from other local and statewide institutions. 1993: The History Museum of Tampa-Hillsborough County, Inc. changes its name to the Tampa Bay History Center. 1995: The Hillsborough County Commission charges TBHC with the care, in perpetuity, of the County collection. 1996: TBHC moves to the Tampa Convention Center Annex on Franklin Street, serving the community with permanent and traveling exhibitions, public programs, outreach, research assistance, publications. 1998: The Hillsborough County Commission commits $17 million in Community Investment Tax funds toward the planning and construction of a new museum building for TBHC. 2000: Attorney George B. Howell III succeeds J. Thomas Touchton as Chairman of TBHC's Board of Trustees and continues the commitment of the board, staff and volunteers to acquire a permanent home for the museum.
2004: Tampa and Hillsborough County leaders sign an agreement to build the new History Center in Cotanchobee-Fort Brooke Park on a 2.4-acre tract secured by the City of Tampa through a grant from the Florida Communities Trust. February 2006: To complete the process of building the new museum, The Campaign to Create the Tampa Bay History Center Experience is authorized by the Board of Trustees. September 2006: The Capital Campaign is launched, requiring the History Center to raise $28 million in private funds, $17 million more than its initial pledge of $11 million to the Hillsborough County Commission. Mr. Touchton chairs the campaign. October 2007: Construction begins on the museum's new 60,000-square-foot home — Hillsborough County's first publicly owned LEED Certified "Green Building". October 2007: Because of the success of the campaign and the need for an additional $4.5 millionto build out the new museum, the Board of Trustees agrees to increase the private campaign goal from $28 million to $32 million.
March 2008: TBHC closes its museum space on Franklin Street to begin staging for the move into the new building. June 2008: Local dignitaries, board members, staff gather with more than 200 construction workers to celebrate the last milestone of construction — the topping-out of the Tampa Bay History Center. June 2008: The History Center receives word that it has been awarded a $1-million challenge grant from the prestigious Kresge Foundation to help build the museum and its exhibits. To receive the $1-million grant, the History Center must complete its fundraising campaign by April 1, 2009. January 2009: The History Center celebrates the grand opening of its new facility. March 2009: The History Center meets the Kresge Challenge, raising $32 million in private contributions five days ahead of schedule. October 2009: The History Center Building, which owned by Hillsborough County, is renamed the J. Thomas Touchton Tampa Bay History Center Building. 2012: The History Center becomes a Smithsonian Affiliate museum 2015: The History Center becomes accredited by the American Alliance of Museums The museum's exhibition galleries explore 500 years of recorded history and 12,000 years of human habitation in the Tampa Bay region.
Icons of Tampa Bay The museum's main entrance, the glass-enclosed Lykes Atrium, showcases 14 colorful icons representing historic characters and symbols unique to the Tampa Bay region. Icons include: 1902 Oldsmobile.
Westshore (Tampa)
Westshore is a principal business district of Tampa, United States, with more than 11,000,000 square feet of commercial office space, 4,000 businesses with nearly 100,000 employees, 32 hotels, two major shopping malls and more than 200 restaurants and bars. Westshore Boulevard is the district's main thoroughfare. Although zoned for commercial use there is some residential space in the area; the NEVs that circulate people around Tampa's urban corridor areas are starting to venture to International Plaza. The Westshore Business District includes Tampa International Airport, the headquarters of OSI Restaurant Partners, One Buccaneer Place, the former team headquarters of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Downtown Tampa, the main CBD of Tampa International Plaza and Bay Street, upscale mall and entertainment district adjacent to TIA Rocky Point, island neighborhood adjacent to Westshore and TIA
Ybor City
Ybor City is a historic neighborhood in Tampa, United States, located just northeast of downtown. It was founded in the 1880s by Vicente Martinez-Ybor and other cigar manufacturers and was populated by thousands of immigrants from Cuba and Italy. For the next 50 years, workers in Ybor City's cigar factories rolled hundreds of millions of cigars annually. Ybor City was unique in the American South as a successful town entirely populated and owned by immigrants; the neighborhood had features unusual among contemporary communities in the south, most notably its multi-ethnic and multi-racial population and their many mutual aid societies. The cigar industry employed thousands of well-paid workers, helping Tampa grow from an economically depressed village to a bustling city in about 20 years and giving it the nickname "Cigar City". Ybor City grew and flourished from the 1890s until the Great Depression of the 1930s, when a drop in demand for fine cigars reduced the number of cigar factories and mechanization in the cigar industry reduced employment opportunities in the neighborhood.
This process accelerated after World War II, a steady exodus of residents and businesses continued until large areas of the vibrant neighborhood were abandoned by the late 1970s. Attempts at redevelopment failed until the 1980s, when an influx of artists began a slow process of gentrification. In the 1990s and early 2000s, a portion of the original neighborhood around 7th Avenue developed into a night club and entertainment district, many old buildings were renovated for new uses. Since the area's economy has diversified with more offices and residences, the population has shown notable growth for the first time in over half a century. Ybor City has been designated as a National Historic Landmark District, several structures in the area are listed in the National Register of Historic Places. In 2008, 7th Avenue, the main commercial thoroughfare in Ybor City, was recognized as one of the "10 Great Streets in America" by the American Planning Association. In 2010 Columbia Restaurant was named a "Top 50 All-American icon" by Nation's Restaurant News magazine.
In the early 1880s, Tampa was an isolated village with a population of less than 1000 and a struggling economy. However, its combination of a good port, Henry Plant's new railroad line, humid climate attracted the attention of Vicente Martinez Ybor, a prominent Spanish cigar manufacturer. Ybor had moved his cigar-making operation from Cuba to Key West, Florida, in 1869, due to political turmoil in the then-Spanish colony. But, labor unrest and the lack of room for expansion had him looking for another base of operations, preferably in his own company town. Ybor considered several communities in the southern United States and decided that an area of sandy scrubland just northeast of Tampa would be the best location. In 1885, the Tampa Board of Trade helped broker an initial purchase of 40 acres of land, Ybor bought more. Cigar making was a specialized trade, Tampa did not possess a workforce able to man the new factories. To attract employees, Ybor built hundreds of small houses for the coming influx of Cuban and Spanish cigar workers, many of whom followed him from Key West and Cuba.
Other cigar manufacturers, drawn by incentives provided by Ybor to further increase the labor pool moved in making Tampa a major cigar production center. Italians were among the early settlers of Ybor City. Most of them came from a few villages in southwestern Sicily; the villages were Santo Stefano Quisquina, Alessandria della Rocca, Bivona and Contessa Entellina. Sixty percent of them came from Santo Stefano Quisquina. Before settling in Ybor City, many first worked in the sugar cane plantations in St. Cloud, central Florida; some came by way of Louisiana. A number of families migrated from New Orleans after the lynching of eleven Italians in 1891 during the "Mafia Riot". Italians brought their entire families with them, unlike other immigrants; the foreign-born Italian population of Tampa grew from 56 in 1890 to 2,684 in 1940. Once arriving in Ybor City, Italians settled in the eastern and southern fringes of the city; the area was referred to after a Cuban rent collector in that area. It was called "Little Italy".
Unlike Cubans and Spaniards, the Italians arrived in the cigar town without cigar-making skills. When the early Italians entered the factories, it was at the bottom of the ladder, positions which did not involve handling tobacco. Working beside unskilled Cubans Afro-Cubans, they swept and hauled and were porters and doorkeepers. In time, many did become cigar workers, including Italian women; the majority of the Italian women worked as cigar strippers in 1900, an undesirable position held by women who could find nothing else. However many of them became skilled cigar makers, earning more than the male Italian cigar makers. Other Italian immigrants started small businesses built around the cigar industry, such as cafés, food stores and boardinghouses; the least known of the immigrants that came to Ybor City are the Germans, the Romanian Jews, the Chinese. The Chinese and Jews were employed in service trades and retail businesses; the Germans arrived after the 1890s, most were businessmen. In the cigar factories, they worked as managers and supervisors.
Cigar boxes were made by German-owned factories. Several early cigar box labels were made by German lithographers; the Germans formed the Deutsch Amerikanischer Verein. The club building is still standing on 11th Avenue, it contained a restaurant open to the public. In 1919, because of anti-German feelings from Wo
Towers of Channelside
The Towers of Channelside are a residential complex in Tampa, Florida. The two Towers have 30 floors, they are 11th tallest buildings in Tampa. Curts Gaines Hall Jones Architects designed the buildings. List of tallest buildings in Tampa Downtown Tampa Emporis West Tower East Tower
