After years of negotiations, a slice of Tampa’s once-forgotten Zion Cemetery will be given to a group working to restore it.
The Tampa City Council on Thursday approved a land swap agreement to convey a privately owned property on North Florida Avenue to the Zion Cemetery Maintenance and Preservation Society or another nonprofit. The property, owned by Tampa restaurateur Richard Gonzmart, contains the graves of Black people dating back more than 100 years.
The vote comes as city and community leaders work to memorialize the roughly 800 people believed to be buried at Zion Cemetery, which disappeared from public record in the 1920s. The city says it’s in talks to convey a final slice of privately owned land believed to contain graves to the Zion Cemetery society.
“We have tried to untangle a series of troubling and disappointing decisions that were made by individuals that were in positions of power in the city of Tampa,” Mayor Jane Castor said at a news conference after the vote. “What we can do today is rectify that to the best of our ability.”
In 2019, then-Tampa Bay Times reporter Paul Guzzo published an investigation revealing the remains of the lost burial ground, believed to be the city’s first Black cemetery.
Dozens of stories followed, documenting coffins buried under part of Robles Park Village, a former public housing complex owned by the Tampa Housing Authority. In 2020, archaeologists using ground-penetrating radar detected more than 100 caskets on Gonzmart’s land.
Graves were also found on parts of a sixth-of-an-acre tow lot owned by Dennis Creech. That land was not part of the swap approved by the Council on Thursday.
“The wheels of government slowly turn, but we have been in conversation with that individual,” Castor said at the news conference. “But we will be moving forward with the memorial. This isn’t going to slow us down.”
Gonzmart will convey his property at 3721 N. Florida Avenue directly to the Zion Cemetery Preservation and Maintenance Society, or to another nonprofit jointly designated by the city and the cemetery society, according to a March 31 memo from Deputy City Attorney Morris Massey.
In exchange, Gonzmart will received a city-owned property on North Highland Avenue and West Seventh Avenue. At the news conference, he also pledged to spend $100,000 on a memorial for the cemetery.
“Our family is committed to developing it, whatever it takes,” he said.
“Some may wonder why this is such a milestone and why we care so deeply about righting this wrong,” said council member Naya Young.
“For starters, residents living here today could very likely have family members buried there and they just don’t know it,” she said. “It’s also a matter of paying our respects to those who endured the pain and cruelty of slavery. Restoring their sacred burial ground and sharing its history is really the least that we could do.”
Last year, the city unveiled a historic designation marker near the cemetery site, paid for by Gonzmart and written by historian Rodney Kite-Powell.
The Tampa Housing Authority and developer PMG Affordable are now redeveloping the Robles Park apartment complex that sat atop the cemetery, with plans to include a memorial and genealogy center dedicated to Zion. The price and timeline are not yet clear.
Reva Iman, who serves on the board of the Zion Cemetery Preservation and Maintenance Society, asked council members on Thursday for $8 million for the restoration and memorial project.
“This is something that the city will forever be grateful for,” she said.