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New Tampa city center opens
Briona Arradondo reports
TAMPA, Fla. - The Hanna Avenue City Center is open for business, becoming like a one-stop shop for several city services for residents and businesses in Tampa.
A little over 200 workers have moved in, with more coming.
"We’re moving the team in phases, so we’re about halfway there," said Adri Colina, the director of logistics and asset management with the city of Tampa.
She said the complex will house about 500 employees.
On Wednesday, the city held an open house, showing off new community rooms for residents and offices for workers. The $101 million project helped to move city workers out of buildings with expiring and more expensive leases.
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"We were able to control our destiny and have a building that will allow us to meet our needs for now and for many, many years to come and not be victim to the economy," said Colina.
This project did not come without questions, like which departments would move here and concerns over the price tag and the contract.
In the end, city leaders said they met the community’s needs, with roughly a third of the project including minority or women-owned companies.
"More than 50 diverse suppliers and vendors from this community worked on the Hanna Avenue Project," said Brian Yarborough of DPR Construction, the developer on the contract.
A project engineer who works for one of those companies said this was the largest project he’s worked on, and he’s thankful for the exposure.
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"I would say that it’s very big because it shows people that there’s opportunity," said Stephen Bridges, a project engineer and assistant project manager at Strategist Project Support Services. "I’ve had plenty of people come up to me about this job and on this job asking me, hey man, how do you do that? How do you get in this position? Because it shows people that there’s chances for us to go out here and do the things that people think that we can’t do."
The hundreds of employees and foot traffic from the community bring more traffic to the East Tampa neighborhood, so road changes are coming to help ease the impact.
"Those improvements are going to be lights, traffic lights, traffic signals at Sligh and 30th, and then we’re also going to have sidewalk installation. We’re going to have a turning lane installed onto Hanna to take people off that main drag and not to affect traffic," said Colina.
The city plans to spend about $2.5 million on mobility changes following a study, and they will follow suggestions from the community.