Where Is ‘West Tampa’?

West Tampa comes up at council almost every week. The West Tampa CRA buys land and puts money into the West Riverwalk. Rezonings in the West Tampa overlay come back arguing over alleys. Staff reports note a building’s “contributing structure status in the West Tampa national historic district.” All three are called West Tampa. They aren’t the same place, and none of them is the City of West Tampa, which was its own city until 1925.

I walked through three of these last January with a set of gray maps. Here’s the interactive version, with the old city limits added.

Click anywhere on the map to see which of the four include that spot. The legend turns each one on and off.

The City of West Tampa, 1895–1925

Hugh Macfarlane bought land west of the river in the early 1890s to draw cigar manufacturers, and West Tampa incorporated as its own city in 1895. Tampa annexed it effective January 1, 1925, by an act of the Legislature. The dashed line is those 1925 limits. Most of today’s overlay district sits inside them, and nobody governs by this line anymore.

The National Register historic district, 1983

The smallest of the four, roughly Cypress Street to Ivy Street and Fremont Avenue to Habana Avenue. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in October 1983. It’s a national district, not a local one, so the Architectural Review Commission doesn’t review work there the way it does in Hyde Park or Seminole Heights. It still matters in zoning: whether a building is a “contributing structure” follows this line.

The West Tampa Overlay District

This one is zoning. City Code Section 27-241 sets design standards for new infill and major renovations: building orientation, height, lot dimensions, and residential parking off the alley. That alley rule is behind most of the waiver fights that reach council. The code describes the area as “generally bound by Tampa Bay Boulevard and the Hillsborough River on the north, North A and North B streets on the south, Rome Avenue and North Boulevard on the east and Habana & MacDill Avenues on the west.”

The West Tampa CRA, 2015

The Community Redevelopment Area is the money line. Property tax growth inside it stays inside it, which is how the West Tampa CRA ends up paying for $10 million of the West Riverwalk, land on Cypress Street, Rey Park and the Dr. Walter L. Smith Library. Council created it in 2015. Roughly: Armenia Avenue on the west, Columbus Drive on the north, the river on the east and Kennedy Boulevard on the south, with a jog around the University of Tampa.

Because it stops at Armenia, the part of the historic district between Armenia and Habana isn’t in the CRA. And it’s getting longer: under the Rays stadium agreement the West Tampa CRA runs another 10 years, though the county stops contributing after the original sunset.

Everyone else’s West Tampa

Then there’s the West Tampa people mean when they say it. At a recent comp plan hearing, Council Member Guido Maniscalco, backing Hurtak’s motion to pull Armenia Avenue between Kennedy and Columbus from the transit-ready corridors: “People think it’s Howard Avenue, main street, all that area, but looking at Columbus to Kennedy, it’s the heart of West Tampa right there and it goes into Armory Gardens.”

As a young guy living in Hyde Park, the corner of Lincoln and Columbus was “the heart” of West Tampa for me. Specifically the old La Teresita and it’s all-night weekends where we’d unwind after a busy night working. We’d stuff our faces and drink a few beers while listening to the guys jam in the corner. If you were lucky you’d catch them doing “Guantanamera.”

During the Rays community benefits talks, West Tampa Heights’ proposal for the agreement asked to define West Tampa as Kennedy to Hillsborough Avenue, the river to Dale Mabry. It wasn’t adopted.

So when someone at the podium says “West Tampa,” it’s worth asking which one. The money follows the CRA. The design rules follow the overlay. Historic status follows the 1983 district. And none of them exactly match the city that gave the place its name.

The map also lives in the toolshed maps collection.