With work underway at old Trump Tower Tampa site, Riverwalk to close again
Regulars on downtown Tampa’s Riverwalk groused mightily when a piece of the popular 2.6-mile recreational trail closed for the $38 million Tampa Convention Center expansion, rerouting runners and pedestrians along a busy city street.
That section reopened this summer after a year and a half, giving them their unbroken waterside path back again.
As downtown rides the wave of development, there’s another detour in the Riverwalk’s future, though it’s expected to be a shorter one.
Pendry Tampa, a luxury hotel and condo high-rise, is currently being built on the south end of the Hillsborough River along Ashley Drive downtown. The 37-story tower of 220 hotel rooms and 207 residences, with condo prices starting at $1.5 million, is expected to be completed in 2025.
Nearly two decades ago in 2005, that same site was slated for Trump Tower Tampa, a project that did not get off the ground. Described as a property “so spectacular that it will redefine both Tampa’s skyline and the market’s expectations of luxury,” it was ultimately doomed by soaring construction costs and lack of financing.
According to city officials, the Pendry developer originally wanted to close a city-block-long section of the Riverwalk path that runs along the site for three years during construction. The city declined.
“The Riverwalk is too important to the residents of Tampa, so that was a nonstarter,” said city spokesperson Adam Smith.
The plan now is to build a protected walkway alongside the site on the Riverwalk that would allow people to continue to use the path during construction. That section of the Riverwalk would be closed for four to six weeks while the walkway is built, beginning in roughly the next 60 days, city officials said.
While the protective scaffolding is under construction, people on the Riverwalk will be diverted up from the waterfront and along Ashley Drive, one of downtown’s main north-south thoroughfares, and then rerouted back to the path. The area stretches between MacDill Park and the Brorein Street Bridge.
“The anticipated date for the Riverwalk detour is being finalized,” Abbye Feeley, the city’s deputy administrator for development and economic opportunity, said in an email.
Brad Meltzer, president of Two Roads Development, told the Tampa Bay Times via email: “We absolutely love the Riverwalk and it is a major reason we are building here. We want to keep the Riverwalk open as much as possible, as safely as possible, and so we are working with the City to help make that happen.”
“The tentative plan under discussion now is that we will build a protective canopy over the Riverwalk and adjust construction so that pedestrian traffic can continue amid construction of the Pendry Tampa hotel and residences,” he said.
Given the cranes at work around downtown Tampa, it won’t likely be the last time people who walk, run, bike, skate and party on the Riverwalk — more than 100,000 of them monthly — will encounter some disruption. Work on both the waterside Tampa Museum of Art and the Straz Center for the Performing Arts could also mean diverted routes, according to the city.
“Riverwalk is such an important community asset and an economic engine,” said Smith. “So we’re working with all developers to make sure we protect the experience.”
