Author: opinionstogo

Fortifying Tampa

First the good news.

By all accounts, the sale and ultimate reincarnation of the Fort Homer Hesterly Armory in West Tampa is proceeding, although hardly apace. It’s the nature of government property and attendant bureaucratic hoops. But it looks like the Heritage Square at the Armory group is on target to develop a project that would include a hotel, day spa, cafes, restaurants, boutiques and more.

The bad news is that this is the first choice for redevelopment. The back-up project is that of the Armory Partners Group of Tampa, who would build a video, film and sound studio and develop creative arts businesses. It would also include retail, a grocery store and apartments.

Tampa, ever mindful of the need to continually diversify its economy, is on the cinematic cusp of developing a more reliable and viable film industry. Lack of a studio complex, however, has long been a major governor on progress. The 522 N. Howard Ave. Armory property is centrally located and, at 10 acres, more than big enough to accommodate such a complex, as well as synergistic, arts-related businesses.

And in a quintessential working class neighborhood, a grocery store and affordable housing makes much more sense than a hotel, day spa and boutiques.

White House Conflict

Wasn’t there a time when an invitation to visit the White House was, well, a pretty big deal? Even if you’ve been invited before?

Last week was the national champion University of Florida basketball team’s turn to be so honored. None of the Gators’ starters, however, were there. Seems there was a conflict involving preparations for this month’s NBA draft.

Museum Context Counts

As with most writers, I’m an expert on nothing, an amateur on everything. That includes architecture.

I know what I like – classic – and what I don’t – contemporary. Enough of the Frank Lloyd Wrong knockoffs and monuments to marketing and ego. But, yes, I will certainly concede, the matter of taste really matters.

What I don’t think is so relative, however, is context. Does a project fit or is it an aesthetic wedgie? You know; you’ve seen them. The Super Dome that’s all too proximate to the French Quarter in New Orleans. That inverted pyramid on St. Petersburg’s classy waterfront. Faux Mediterranean Revival metastasizing all over South Tampa. A post-modern loophole in historic Hyde Park.

That’s why I think it might be significant – well, not irrelevant – that I really like the new contemporary design of the Tampa Museum of Art. And, truth be told, I had really wanted the retrofit at the old federal courthouse to work. And, yes, I really thought that $7-million Rafael Vinoly design was as cheesy as the “mother-of-all-carports” raillery was meant to make it seem.

The new $32.5-million, 68,000-square-foot TMA first phase, scheduled for completion in April 2009, is the architectural inspiration of Stanley Saitowitz of San Francisco. It will be sheathed in pierced aluminum and appear to shimmer from sunlight. Within its metal skin will be programmable LED lighting. It will play off of the sky and the water. The interior lobby will feature a two-story, hologram-like atrium. A landscaped roof will become a lush amenity. An outdoor sculpture garden will overlook the Hillsborough River.

Saitowitz didn’t make excuses for the “Beer Can” building or the Poe Garage or the Ashley Speedway. He simply plowed ahead with an animated vision. He called the riverfront site a “charged and amazing place” in his keynote address at last week’s annual Tampa Downtown Partnership luncheon. He presented a slide show that was top heavy with his urban-infill and city-scapes portfolio. “Integrate,” “blend” and “connect” – as in “into landscapes,” “with the environment” and “to nature” seemed his mantra.

His TMA model embodied his words. Mayor Pam Iorio, whose only stake in what happens on the riverfront is her legacy, was in full beam mode.

Saitowitz also said that he believed in “architecture as infrastructure.” It’s why, he acknowledged, that he typically designs buildings without parking. It’s his way of “fostering transportation” other than via automobile.

As if to underscore that point, one of Saitowitz’s TMA renderings shows the museum as a light-rail stop. Talk about context.

Talk about a vision.

Health Clubs Hustle To Stay Fiscally Fit

Time was when going to a health club meant little more than an exercise in jogging, lifting weights and looking for a spotter. Well, it’s definitely not your father’s Spartan gym – or marketplace – any more.

From Bally Total Fitness to the local YMCA, more than 15,000 companies and non-profits are now soliciting a market of health-conscious consumers, not just the workout-warrior niche. It’s a $15-billion industry.

Sure, the racks of free weights and exercise equipment remain – but amid the cardio centers, bright colors, piped-in music, roving personal trainers, yoga classes and enough TVs for every Dow Jones compulsive and ESPN obsessive. And hardly atypical: saunas, tanning booths, baby-sitting accommodations, member-appreciation-day treats, spa packages, apparel lines and, increasingly, 24-hour access.

Not offering a sampling of the hottest fads and perks could be fiscally unwise in an ever-burgeoning market.

Exhibit A could be Tampa Bay Health & Fitness in north Tampa. It incorporates the Giovane Institute/Clinic Med Spa within a traditional club framework. Thus, under one eclectic roof, members can be found pumping iron, boxing (in an actual ring) and undergoing botox treatments, laser hair removal, hormone therapy and mesotherapy for fat and cellulite reductions.

For those wanting something more exotic than Pilates, there’s the popular Salsa class at The Athletic Club in Brandon or “urban rebounding,” offered at any of the Bally Clubs, which incorporates contemporary music and a trampoline. And probably the hottest group-fitness trend is “Zumba,” a combination of aerobics and international music. Shapes Total Fitness even has a “Zumba Gold” program for seniors.

“The health club business is great,” gushes Scott Coultas, the general manager of Tampa’s Harbour Island Athletic Club and Spa. “There’s no finish line.”

But there is a bottom line that is unforgiving of the competitively unfit.

“It’s all about membership retention,” explains Coultas. “It’s all about the ‘wow’ factor.” At HIAC, a fitness hybrid with about 2,500 (membership) sales units (including families), that means courts for tennis (clay), basketball, racquetball and squash, a swimming pool and a well-provisioned café. Plus a spa, where Sonya Dakar skin treatments range from green tea peels to “Visualift” eye treatments.

It also means ongoing marketing efforts that integrate year-round holiday and other themed socials with sophisticated direct mail campaigns and even overtures to the corporate community to pump up their workforces.

And then there are the basics – as well as the “sweet treats.”

“Sure, you want the latest equipment,” notes Coultas, “but it’s also as simple as keeping it clean and maintaining a friendly staff. Sometimes we role play, and out of that will come a ‘sweet treat,’ such as grabbing an umbrella and walking a member to his or her car when it’s raining.”

Over at Lifestyle Family Fitness, “user-friendly” is the member mantra at its 37 sites, including facilities in Hillsborough, Pinellas and Sarasota counties.

“Of course, you have to be on top of the industry, but often it’s the little things that help keep members,” underscores LFF founder Geoff Dyer. “Can you easily adjust the seat? Can you change the weight without getting out of the chair? Are the numbers and the instructional-sign letters big enough for an aging population?”

And then there’s the music – no minor matter. According to Dyer, LFF centers program more contemporary, up-tempo sounds later in the day. LFF also allows for more demographically-skewed markets.

“For example, in Seminole and Sarasota you’ll hear more ‘Oldies’ music,” points out Dyer. “Whereas, it’s up-tempo all day at (Tampa’s) Hyde Park, which is the youngest in the company. Music is certainly a big part of this business.”

And on a personal note, for those who skew the hot-bod demographic at Lifestyle’s Hyde Park Village facility, you just don’t want to leave home without your “Oldies.”

Still Sage Arabian Advice

Here’s a quote that puts the current “surge” and the whole American occupation in Iraq into context. The quote is 90 years old and resonates no less today than when T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia), sagely said it.

“Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly,” explained Lawrence. “It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them. Actually, also, under the very odd conditions of Arabia, your practical work will not be as good as, perhaps, you think it is.”

Billy The Kidder Tries To Go Home Again

Even die-hard University of Florida fans – and I’d venture to include the likes of Mr. Two-Bits and my hard-core, Gator-alum buddy George Meyer – would have to admit this: Billy Donovan took the mother of all leveraged advantages and screwed it up. Big time.

A guy who was all about taking charge and winning with class was the antithesis of both. Overcome by events and ambition.

Donovan’s assignment was beyond enviable and easy: To check out what, at age 42, back-to-back NCAA national championships would be worth in America’s hoops-happy marketplace. As he would find out, UF would make him the highest paid college coach if he stayed in Gainesville, a place where he was already lionized. The National Basketball Association’s Orlando Magic? Well, they would simply top it. Add, say, another $2 million per.

Is that win-win or what?

So, how do you convert that into a national punch line? From Pied Piper of Gainesville to the Hamlet of the hard courts. The Andrew Speaker of financial windfalls.

The thinking is that Donovan, even though he was enamored of the NBA because of its “ultimate challenge” cachet, wasn’t true to himself when it was all on the line. Nor was he true to all those in his immediate universe that would be impacted. And not just his family. The collateral fall-out was considerable.

There was Donovan’s new UF assistant, Rob Lanier, who was relocating from the University of Virginia; an incumbent assistant, Larry Shyatt, who would be hired on by Orlando; and Anthony Grant of Virginia Commonwealth University, Donovan’s successor-in-waiting, who was left literally waiting on the tarmac in Richmond, Va. Plus a bunch of employees in the UF basketball program who were offered positions with the Magic. And, of course, those high school hot shots who had signed on fully expecting to play for the charismatic coach who had recruited them.

Donovan, ironically, had always underscored the value of family, the importance of a home environment and the priority of where and how his kids would grow up.

That’s why his parents, in-laws and sister own homes in Gainesville, where the living is both bucolically upscale and small-town friendly. Donovan could be surrounded by fame, fortune and family, including his wife, Christine, and their four children, ages 5 to 15. Such a comfort zone, obviously, is not to be confused with an NBA milieu, one rife with hotels, hucksters, hustlers, hip-hoppers and college dropouts with posses.

But Donovan got greedy for the ultimate “next step” – as if winning with a whole new starting team at UF wasn’t challenge enough. As if continuing to recruit with integrity wasn’t challenge enough. As if keeping UF on track for parity with the Duke of Mike Krzyzewski wasn’t challenge enough. As if becoming a Florida eponym – not unlike Joe Paterno at Penn State or Bobby Bowden at Florida State – wasn’t challenge enough.

After signing that $27.5 million deal with Orlando, Donovan changed prisms upon returning to Gainesville for his good-bye press conference. In effect, he seemed to be pondering if, indeed, the trade-offs could really be worth those red-eye flights after another tough loss to the Seattle SuperSonics or the Sacramento Kings. He was now immersed in those he had disappointed – and they were, by all accounts, acknowledging precisely that.

The quality-of-life epiphany then kicked in: “I’m happy here; my family’s happy here; we’re all rich here; I’m not hurting for challenges here.”

Including the challenge that Thomas Wolfe couldn’t find precedent for: “You can’t go home again.” And there’s a reason why Wolfe’s sage injunction has continued to resonate over the years. You can’t recapture context, even if you’ve been barely away.

But if anyone can refute Wolfe, it’s Gator Nation.

Just keep winning, Billy.

Hall Of Fame Criteria

The Florida Sports Hall of Fame has five new members. It’s an eclectic class. So eclectic, in fact, that the criteria for qualification ought to be revisited.

Locally prominent among the new entrants is Tampa’s Tino Martinez, who had a 16-year Major League Baseball career after starring at the University of Tampa. He helped lead the New York Yankees to four World Series titles. Also included: Miami native Michael Irvin, who was an All-American wide receiver for the University of Miami and an All-Pro with the Dallas Cowboys.

Then there’s Chandra Cheeseborough from Jacksonville who was a national sprint champion and Olympic gold medalist. The Tennessee State grad will help coach the USA track team at next year’s Olympics in Beijing. Another solid choice.

The other two inductees are Bill Buchalter and Terry Bolea, arguably less familiar names.

Buchalter, who grew up in St. Petersburg, is not an athlete. He’s an Orlando Sentinel sportswriter. He’s been doing it a long time and is well regarded. But he’s a sportswriter; he chronicles what actual athletes actually do. Put him in the chroniclers’ or pundits’ Hall.

But at least Buchalter is about real athletics. Not so with Tampa-raised Bolea, AKA Hulk Hogan. Of course he was athletic, but it was in pursuit of professional wrestling, which is slapstick theater, not sport. For years he’s been a professional celebrity.

But congratulations to those who truly deserve to be in the Florida Sports Hall of Fame: Martinez, Cheeseborough and Irvin. And additional kudos to Martinez and Cheeseborough for being classy, credit-to-their-community individuals.

Speaks Volumes

I remember reading once that the Aleut language of Eskimos had several dozen different words for “snow.” Stands to reason, given the role of snow in that society. It’s embedded in the culture. It’s that important, that relevant, that dominant.

Now we come to learn that the Iraqis actually have a word – “sahel” – that means to so dominate and humiliate someone as to drag their corpse through the streets. Speaks volumes, doesn’t it, about the challenge faced by anyone who deigns to convert Mes O’Potamia into something approximating a contemporary democracy with a civilizational rule of law?

What the Iraqis need, instead, is a couple dozen words for reconciliation.

Tampa’s Imposing Parlay: Museum And Hotel

OK, so Trump is a towering, SimDagian disappointment, light rail still seems a light year away and downtown remains more potential than presence.

The last month, however, has seen two developments that ought to impress all but professional cynics. And we’re not even talking about the $2 million earmarked for the Riverwalk that went un-vetoed by Gov. Not Jeb. Or the imminent opening of a waterfront Malio’s. Or even the cachet of our very own IKEA store. Nor are we referencing (cue the drum roll) another downtown street converted to two-way.

After the gestation from hell, this city finally has a workable design and plan for a Tampa Museum of Art worthy of a major city. Additionally, Tampa is now primed to join the ranks of the metropolitan parvenu with its very own, five-star Ritz-Carlton hotel.

For anyone remembering the mother of all carports, that Rafael Vinoly-designed museum fiasco, the Stanley Saitowitz model seems a true work of, well, art. The $32.5-million, 68,000-square-foot, two-building first phase appears modern without being too stark, gimmicky or ego-centric – no minor contemporary feat.

The lobby, which is under the gallery level in the main building, will be transparent, thus highlighting — and sharing — the aesthetics inherent in a winding river and iconic minarets. Built-in, fiber-optic lights can be programmed to change colors at night, and the green rooftop will be lush and redolent with plants. An outdoor sculpture garden will overlook the Hillsborough River.

Tampa City Council member Linda Saul-Sena called it “ingenious” and “unique to our situation.” The way it will “play off the sky and the water,” said Saul-Sena, will create an “animated visual.”

No less impressive is the art of the deal.

This one has a viable business plan and a pay-as-you-go mantra for expansion – to 120,000 square feet. For that to happen, however, the private sector will have to step up in a way truly befitting big city ambitions. To that end, the unveiling of the Saitowitz model, the groundbreaking – set for early next year – and the probable pressing of Paul Wilborn into fund-raising, piano-playing mode are expected to accelerate the pitch to the public.

As to the Ritz-Carlton, it’s been no secret that the Bay Area has long pined for a five-star property to round out its convention and tourism appeal.

If Clearwater developer Sandip Patel finalizes negotiations, which are reportedly close, a Ritz-Carlton property would replace a razed Radisson Bay Harbor Hotel at Rocky Point on Old Tampa Bay. The two-towered, $300-million, mixed-use project would include 274 hotel rooms plus 184 residential units. Construction would begin in 2008.

Besides the star power of the Ritz-Carlton brand, such a totemic property would also represent a vote of confidence in the Bay Area. It would mean that the Tampa Bay market, never confused with a Naples or a Palm Beach, was dynamic enough to command $400-a-day rates.

Crist’s Real Mission

So far, so good, seemingly, for Gov. Charlie Crist. He’s still on the popular, populist side of issues, and seems refreshingly bi-partisan. And, moreover, a really nice guy. Everyone loves him except the jilted conservative Republican base. But, hey, there are always trade-offs.

But what’s with targeting Israel with your very first opportunity at heading a Florida trade mission? Were there that many promised insiders?

Sure, other Florida governors (including Jeb Bush and Bob Martinez) have made the pilgrimage to America’s long-standing friend and ally. But right out of the blocks? This sortie smacked of the purest political motive, something we somehow thought we shouldn’t expect from Crist. At least not so soon.

But he obviously yielded to the political siren call of the Jewish vote. And Florida’s, of course, is sizable, with a Jewish population topped only by those in California and New York.

Florida’s trade with Israel is negligible, about $150 million a year in exports or chump change by international-commerce standards. So this foray is hardly a business priority. For a Republican governor of a mega swing state that the GOP must have in 2008 – and one rumored as a potential GOP vice presidential candidate next year – the Israeli visit was blatant politics as usual. Gov. Crist knows what plays well in the condos of Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton, including those strategic photo ops with Israeli leaders.

And speaking of minimal business opportunities, look at who his retinue included: U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Miami Republican and virulent pro-Cuban embargo proponent. The irony is overwhelming. It is estimated that the embargo that Ros-Lehtinen continues to go to the political mattresses for costs the U.S. an estimated $3 billion to $4 billion in lost exports a year, a big chunk of it at Florida’s expense.

Talk about business as usual.