$1.75M federal grant awarded to city of Tampa will start office focused on regional infrastructure

The city of Tampa was awarded a $1.75 million federal grant to help fast-track some big-ticket projects, by creating a new office focused on regional infrastructure.

The U.S. Department of Transportation Build America Bureau grant will help bring all the planning of its top projects closer to a reality. The money will create a new regional infrastructure accelerator to help workshop different options to pay for transportation projects.

The city of Tampa’s Vision Zero team leader Alex Henry said they sold Tampa’s story of growth.

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"When you look at the price tag of the amount of investment we’re talking about of the types of projects we’re talking about, those numbers are in the billions," said Henry, with the city of Tampa’s mobility department. "[It includes] important transit connections like bus rapid transit from USF to downtown, looking at transit connections from downtown to the airport, looking at our streetcar modernization project."

It also includes TECO streetcar improvements, Brightline connections and an expanded bicycle lane network.

"The challenge that we've always had is figuring out how can we fund these projects. And so we're looking to come together under the banner of this new RIA office and explore some ways that we can deliver money to move these projects forward," said Johnny Wong, the executive director of the Hillsborough Transportation Planning Organization. 

The city will work with HART, Hillsborough TPO, USF, Brightline and the Tampa Hillsborough Expressway Authority as partners through the office.

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"There's been talk about water transit from south Hillsborough County out to MacDill Air Force Base. That's another project that has some strong public support," said Wong. "That's expertise that the TPO can bring to the table, sorting through all of the good ideas that have surfaced in the community and helping refine that list so that we're strategic about how we use this planning money and how we use our personnel time to deliver projects again that have the greatest likelihood of getting constructed."

Wong said he hopes the new office will help them explore some non-traditional ways to pay for projects.

"The path that local governments have often looked to is public financing, maybe public private partnerships. What we can explore now is maybe philanthropy, maybe going to techniques that the finance sector specializes in," Wong said.

The application said the money includes hiring at least two staff members, and outside help is also a possibility. Hillsborough TPO said they expect to learn everything possible through the grant, so they can move those projects forward.