Construction of the
$31.5-million heritage streetcar line connecting Tampa with Ybor City is finally
ready to get underway now that a lawsuit over the price of a 1.25-acre piece of
land needed for an intermodal terminal has been decided. The four owners of the
property, located adjacent to the Tampa Convention Center, sued because they
were dissatisfied with the price offered by the Hillsborough Area Regional
Transit Authority. A jury decided $9.5 million was fair, $4 million above what
was proposed but $1.1 million less than the owners’ valuation. Work on the
2.3-mile route is projected to be completed in spring 2002, about a year behind
schedule, and it’s expected to carry more than a million riders annually. Eight
air-conditioned replica Birney Safety Cars similar to those that operated in
Tampa until 1946 have been purchased from Gomaco and are now being delivered.
Naming rights to the line have been sold to TECO Energy and the project is now
officially the TECO Line Streetcar System. There are plans to extend the route
north from the Convention Center through the heart of downtown via Franklin
Street.
