Commissioners Vote To Build The PAC

Construction of the New Tampa Performing Arts Center could begin on this barren lot in the next few months. (Photo: Charmaine George)

The New Tampa Players (NTP), a local acting troupe looking for a permanent home, recently finished a run of shows with a cast of just a handful of performers in a 2,000-sq.-ft. black box theater at the old University Mall.

It’s not exactly what the group may have envisioned when it started nearly 20 years ago with the hope of a cultural center they could call home in the heart of New Tampa, but now, they can see a spotlight at the end of the tunnel.

Thanks in part to a public outpouring of support from many NTP and New Tampa community members, the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners voted 5-2 to approve a $7.3-million construction contract to build the long-awaited New Tampa Performing Arts Center (NTPAC).

“We weren’t 100 percent it would go through, but we are super happy it did,” said Nora Paine, a long-time member and current president of the NTP.

The vote is the biggest step yet for the project, which dates back to 2001, and was initially approved in 2014. Commissioner Ken Hagan, whose District 2 includes New Tampa, says a groundbreaking for the state-of-the-art, 20,000-sq.-ft. (expandable to 30,000 square feet) NTPAC should be scheduled in the next month or two. 

Hagan would like to see the project, which is located in the Village at Hunter’s Lake development across Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. from the entrance to the Hunter’s Green community, completed by September of 2022.

“I’m ecstatic over the results,” Hagan says. “Good things come to those who wait. It only took 17 years, but we finally got over the finish line. The end result is that next year, New Tampa is going to have a first-class facility that’s going to be a wonderful centerpiece for the entire community to enjoy.”

Ken Hagan

Hagan told the Neighborhood News that the construction contract has been awarded to Dunedin-based Bandes Construction, but that the Request for Proposals to operate the PAC hasn’t yet happened. 

Hagan told the Board he had received more than 140 emails in support of the NTPAC project. The handful of emails Hagan said he received in opposition to building it primarily dealt with traffic concerns.

Prior to the vote, more than a dozen speakers, including many NTP members, asked the commissioners to keep the PAC dream alive. 

“A lot of us had concerns of (the project just being) small stores and another apartment complex,” said Hunter’s Green resident Rob Larsen. “Well, to our surprise, the Performing Arts Center was going to be the heart of this new center. And without it, it basically dies.”

District 63 State Rep. Fentrice Driskell sent an email of support, and Tampa City Council member Luis Viera, who represents New (and North) Tampa in District 7, weighed in as well, promising a commitment from the city to help pay some of the PAC’s operating costs.

Joining Hagan in voting to award the construction contract were commissioners Harry Cohen, Stacy White, Kimberly Overman and Gwen Myers.

They all cited the promises made to New Tampa residents over the years and, as Hagan pointed out, the money to build the PAC was approved back in 2019 and has been waiting to be spent.

“Promises made, promises kept,” said Comm. Myers. “I hope no other community would go through 17 years waiting on a decision from our county.”

The New Tampa Players, performing “Little Mermaid”, may soon have a permanent home to put on its productions. (Photo: James Cass of Picture This of Palma Ceia)

Commissioners Mariella Smith and BCC chair Pat Kemp voted against awarding the construction contract. 

Smith said she didn’t believe the rights to operate the PAC once it was built should be awarded to the Manatee County-based Florida Cultural Group (FCG).

Kemp was critical of the PAC’s location. She said it was a “little teeny place carved out of a massive parking lot” and jammed between a strip mall and an apartment complex, both which financially benefited the developers and left the PAC’s actual location as an afterthought. 

“It would just be a boondoggle for me to put an iconic building that you put up a lot of money for behind a strip mall and in front of a four-story apartment building,” Kemp said.

Following the construction vote, the commissioners addressed the concerns about FCG by voting unanimously for a Request for Proposals (RFP) to reopen the bidding process in order to find a group to handle the PAC operations.

Hagan says the county staff felt that FCG was the best organization to run the facility to get it to a net-zero operation, and that its extensive experience at fund raising and luring national acts would be an ideal fit. 

“Unless there’s another organization that we’re unaware of, our staff feels that at the end, after going through the RFP, it will likely be FCG again,” Hagan says. “Whoever it is, I just want them to be able to be effective and able to fund raise and bring in national acts.”

Hagan said he also will champion the creation of an additional local board, comprised of New Tampa residents, to support the facility and help with any other issues.

For more information about the New Tampa Players, visit NewTampaPlayers.org. The troupe’s latest project, “Motherhood Out Loud.” runs June 11-12 at 7:30 p.m., June 13 at 3 p.m., June 18-19 at 7:30 p.m. and June 20 at 3 p.m. at the Uptown Stage at the University Mall (2200 E. Fowler Ave.).

Will The Show Go On At The New Tampa PAC?

The New Tampa Performing Arts Center is planned to go on the currently unbuilt tract of land behind The Village at Hunter’s Lake plaza and in front of The Trails at Hunter’s Lake apartments.(Drone photo: Charmaine George)

Despite the fact a majority of Hillsborough County commissioners declined to vote to award a $7.3-million construction contract for the long-awaited New Tampa Performing Arts Center (PAC), District 2 Commissioner Ken Hagan says the show must go on, following another intermission.

Hagan believes that once all of the county commissioners’ concerns are addressed by staff, construction will proceed.

“I’m not really concerned,” Comm. Hagan told the Neighborhood News. “I think once staff fully describes and explains not only the history of the project but the operational plan, I think the individual Board members will be comfortable with it.”

Hagan’s motion to execute the construction contract with Bandes Construction Company was seconded by Dist. 4’s Stacy White but received no other support. It was withdrawn after some debate, and deferred to the next BOCC meeting on May 5.

The opposition, mostly due to concerns over money and the company that will be managing the facility, raised a few eyebrows in New Tampa, but Hagan says the project, which is located directly across Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. from the Hunter’s Green community in The Village at Hunter’s Lake, is not in any danger. The pad for the PAC is already in place (see photo), built by the developer, Harrison Bennett Properties, LLC.

Roughly $8 million in funding to complete the project was set aside in 2019 via a bond issue.

The New Tampa PAC — which for almost all of its history had been referred to as the New Tampa Cultural Center — will be a 350-seat venue with four dance studios. The seats in the auditorium will be retractable, allowing the space to be converted into a multi-purpose room for event receptions. The 20,000-sq.-ft. building is adaptable to accommodate various needs when it comes to space. There also are plans to add a second story in the future to accommodate additional dance studios and community spaces. 

Commissioners Mariella Smith, Kimberly Overman, Gwen Myers and Harry Cohen shared many of the same concerns, mostly centering around questions regarding the company that will manage the facility — the Florida Cultural Group (FCG). Formerly known as The Manatee Players, Inc., the FCG is an umbrella organization that operates the Manatee Performing Arts Center, and the Manatee Players community theater.

Smith questioned why the operations would be handled by a Manatee-based company, as opposed to the local New Tampa Players (NTP). But NTP, which would make its home at the new PAC, is a much smaller organization that has never handled the management of a theater. It currently operates out of its recently completed Uptown Stage location in the University Mall on E. Fowler Ave.

“I just have a concern about the county putting $8 million into a 20,000-sq.-ft. edifice somewhere where there’s not more local community control,” Smith said, while also voicing concern that the City of Tampa was not contributing to the construction when the facility is located in Tampa. However, as Hagan pointed out, the PAC is just as close to residents in the unincorporated area of New Tampa as it is to those in the area living within city limits.

Overman said with so many of the county’s capital improvement projects having to be deferred in these cash-strapped times, she was not necessarily opposed but, “the timing just feels wrong
..I just can’t support moving this forward right now.”

Cohen also had concerns about the arrangement with FCG.

“I don’t think money was the issue, but the main misunderstanding was with the Florida Cultural Group and their role,” says Hagan of the group that will receive nearly $1.5 million to run the PAC through 2025. “A couple of commissioners didn’t understand their history. Our staff has worked on this for a couple of years. They feel extremely confident this will be a very successful partnership and they (FCG) will be able to bring in major national acts and fundraise.”

As for the City of Tampa contributing, District 7 City Council member Luis Viera motioned at the Council’s April 15 meeting to request Mayor Jane Castor’s administration meet with the county to make an arrangement on helping to finance maintenance, to the tune of maybe $50,000-$75,000 a year.

Rendering of the front of the NT PAC, which the county commission has yet to award a contract for construction for. (Fleischman Garcia Architecture)

The previous administration under Bob Buckhorn declined to help, Viera says he was told.

Viera told his fellow Council members that the project was a long-time coming and of much importance to the New Tampa area, and that he was ready to fight for it. Viera’s motion passed unanimously.

How much that helps get the project over the final hurdle remains to be seen.

The PAC has been in the works for 20 years, beginning in 2001 when a Connecticut firm was paid $27,000 by the City for a study that determined New Tampa could support a cultural center. 

Rendering of the lobby of the NT PAC. (Fleischman Garcia Architecture)

The project fizzled out in 2005, but was revived in 2007, when Hagan and former fellow Commissioner Victor Crist pushed to keep it alive. In 2014, the Village at Hunter’s Lake project, of which the New Tampa PAC is a central part, was initially approved. 

Hagan said he has sat through at least 15 different votes on the PAC throughout the years and, at different times over they years, we reported that it was expected to be completed by 2019, 2020 and 2021. 

Even that latest projection isn’t going to happen, however.

“I’m extremely frustrated that it’s taken this long to execute the (PAC’s) construction contract,” Hagan says. “We should be cutting the ribbon now, not awarding the construction contract. I mean, we designated the funding in 2019. We really should have been up and running by now. That part is very, very frustrating.”