TAMPA — What Port Tampa Bay wants to do in a big way, a South Florida developer is doing on a smaller scale nearby in the Channel District.
On a block south of E Kennedy Boulevard between 11th and 12th streets, FCI Residential is spending $60 million to replace an unused warehouse that once served the shipping industry with an Art Deco-inspired apartment house teeming with young professionals.
“It’s one more piece of the puzzle, and a great piece,” Mayor Bob Buckhorn said at a ceremony Wednesday to mark the start of vertical construction. “This is exactly the type of mid-rise development that will work in the Channel District, that will lease up quickly, that will create that walkable, pedestrian-oriented environment and that will then attract retail.”
Part of the 2.25-acre site once housed the former Amazon Hose and Rubber Co., which had been at the port since 1951 but has been vacant for nearly a decade.