TEMPLE TERRACE - Thanks to a city-sponsored program, Alan White is delighted that his potential customers will no longer be turned off by his business's shabby-looking surroundings. On June 3, the Temple Terrace City Council awarded a $3,793.30 commercial facade improvement grant to White and Raymond Proch, co-owners of TWA Firestone Tire, Wheel and Automotive Services at the southwest corner of Busch Boulevard and North 56th Street. That amounts to half the cost of $7,586.60 to remove four sickly oak trees and replace them with four palm trees, as well as adding an assortment of drought-tolerant flowering plants that will front both thoroughfares. ...more

June 5, 2008

Residents creating a new look for downtown Riverview worry that a county planning rule could allow high-density commercial development to creep into their residential neighborhoods. ...more

May 21, 2008

Residents creating a new look for downtown Riverview worry that a county planning rule could allow high-density commercial development to creep into their residential neighborhoods. ...more

May 21, 2008

Most people drive down the city's main thoroughfare and see a ghost town of empty sidewalks, unfilled storefronts, vagrants and for-sale signs. ...more

February 14, 2008

The sight of scaffolding and guys in hard hats may give shoppers the impression that downtown's Fifth Avenue has been turned into a construction zone. ...more

January 11, 2008

The next big skirmish over what downtown should look like has started, with a partially written city policy about green space and a surge of more than 50 impassioned e-mails to city hall. ...more

January 6, 2008

It's not that this historic district doesn't have plenty of shops, agree members of the retail development committee for the Ybor City Development Corp. ...more

December 26, 2007

The owners of the Regency Square shopping center plan to begin this month renovating the plaza's parking lot, adding more trees and other landscaping to the aging plaza. ...more

December 5, 2007

A nonprofit organization that has built some low-cost homes in West Tampa is facing scrutiny from the federal agency that regulates housing, city officials said. ...more

November 3, 2007

SEBRING — As Jhonson Napoleon stood on a pile of rumble and trash Wednesday afternoon in the Nan-Ces-O-Wee Hotel, he admitted he has a lot of work ahead of him. "This is the biggest renovation project I've ever taken on," said Napoleon, who purchased the hotel Sept. 28. "But I see a diamond in the rough here. I picture what it will be when it's done, and I see a great asset for Sebring." Napoleon, a Haiti native who now lives in Miami, spent Wednesday interviewing contractors, walking them through the building and talking about his future plans. The outside will remain intact but the inside will be gutted and renovated. ...more

October 12, 2007