Riverwalk Tampa

I remember, growing up in the Jacksonville suburbs, reading plenty in the papers about Jacksonville's Riverwalk, a boardwalk on the south side of the St. Johns River that, frankly, never attracted much public interest and was a frequent topic of debate. Now that I live in downtown Tampa, a stone's throw from the Hillsborough River, I wish we had a Riverwalk. It would be nice to have a place to walk or ride from my condo down to Channelside without having to dodge traffic and panhandlers.

Well, great glorious huzzah, the city has decided to publicize its plans for our own Hillsborough Riverwalk. I should be thrilled, right? The plans call for picnic terraces at Laurel Street, where I live, and a floating walkway under the Kennedy Bridge. Mayor Iorio wants me to donate to the project (contributions are to make up half the $40 million price tag), but I've got a few questions.

Here's a Tampa Tribune article on the Riverwalk; here's a direct link to the renderings (opens a new window). Let's take a look at these renderings.

The first rendering is a photo of the Kennedy Ave. bridge. Fair enough. The second is a rendering of the same view with the riverwalk in place. Notice that the drawing of the Trump Tower in the background is entirely inaccurate (it's not like the tower's not pictured right on the construction site and in a dozen places on the web). Notice also the magical transformation of the bridge: this bridge is much higher and has a smaller radius than the real bridge, the better to put a floating sidewalk under. I've paddled under that bridge; the drawing is hopeful but I'm afraid it won't work. I'm glad they at least left the crew team artwork there (I once grafittied that very bridge), but I'm not convinced anybody's actually paying attention to reality here.

The fifth rendering shows the convention center, but while rendering two included an inaccurate drawing of the Trump Tower, which won't be complete until 2009 at the earliest, this rendering fails to include the nearly finished Embassy Suites right behind the convention center. And how much less money would it cost to not include the dock for the Jose Gaspar pictured here? Is the berth on Bayshore no good any longer?

Also missing from these renderings are the Platt and Brorein St. bridges. Will there be any shade or cover over the Riverwalk, or is this an October thru March thing exclusively? There are a lot of open questions; I think I'll keep my wallet closed for now.