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Steel beams brace the walls of the Scozzari Brothers Building (Courtesy Chip Weiner)<\/p>\nSteel beams brace the walls of the Scozzari Brothers Building (Courtesy Chip Weiner)<\/p>\n
Along Seventh Avenue in Ybor City, the outside of the Scozzari Brothers Building remains the same while everything inside it changes. Built in 1905, the brick building at the corner of Seventh and 19th Street has housed local institutions like Ovo Cafe and La Tropicana, and was home to Blind Tiger Coffee Roasters\u2019 first location.<\/p>\n
Today, its historic fa\u00e7ade and wraparound balcony, which once looked over a dense, noisy, cigar-rolling neighborhood, are being carefully held in place as the interior is completely gutted and rebuilt. For now, steel beams support the brick exterior while the future is built around and within it.<\/p>\n
That tension between holding on and moving forward is at the heart of Ybor City\u2019s ongoing evolution.<\/p>\n
Amazing, challenging Ybor<\/p>\n
For Charlie Garber, the investor and developer overseeing the Scozzari Brothers redevelopment, preservation is not a sentimental exercise. It\u2019s expensive, bureaucratic, slow, and often frustrating. But it\u2019s also essential.<\/p>\n
\u201cHistoric preservation is key to maintaining an area\u2019s history, culture and feel,\u201d Garber says. \u201cDone right, it can create and maintain a unique and amazing part of the city.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garber focuses much of his commercial real estate investment in Ybor City, a choice he says is personal as much as professional.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI moved to Tampa, in part, because of Ybor,\u201d he explains. \u201cI\u2019m frequently there during the day and at night and really appreciate how fun and different it is from the rest of the city.\u201d<\/p>\n
That difference, he notes, is also what makes Ybor challenging. Many of its buildings are aging, underinvested, and subject to historic review processes that add months \u2014 and money \u2014 to any redevelopment timeline. Even something as basic as replacing old single-pane windows requires approval.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt adds substantial cost, bureaucracy, and time,\u201d Garber says. \u201cNothing is quick. It forces it to be more of a labor of love and less of a profit or business decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The Scozzari Brothers Building was built in 1905 (Courtesy Chip Weiner)<\/p>\n
And yet, he\u2019s pressing forward. The Scozzari project, slated to become a large venue with a rooftop restaurant, preserves only select elements of the original structure: the fa\u00e7ade and balcony railings. Everything else is being rebuilt to modern standards, with the goal of extending the building\u2019s life another century or two.<\/p>\n
\u201cUpgrading the building to stand another 100 to 200 years while looking like it fits into the historic neighborhood, all while delivering 21st century entertainment, is a very cool mix,\u201d Garber says.<\/p>\n
If Garber represents the future pragmatism of preservation, local photographer and historic preservationist Chip Weiner represents its memory.<\/p>\n
Weiner has spent decades documenting Ybor and Tampa through historic photographs \u2014 drawing from archives like the Burgert Brothers collection, which dates back to the late 1800s, as well as newspaper photography from the Tampa Tribune and St. Petersburg Times, including the work of George \u201cSkip\u201d Gandy. His work isn\u2019t about nostalgia for nostalgia\u2019s sake; it\u2019s about continuity.<\/p>\n
Ybor, he often reminds people, wasn\u2019t built as an aesthetic experiment. It was an industrial city, anchored by as many as 15 to 20 cigar factories at its peak. Its architecture emerged from function, labor, and immigrant enterprise, not from a desire to be charming.<\/p>\n
Photography, in that context, becomes proof of life. A record that says this place mattered. This work happened here. People built lives, relationships, and memories inside these walls.<\/p>\n
That perspective reframes projects like the Scozzari building. The value of preserving a fa\u00e7ade isn\u2019t just visual; it\u2019s psychological. People attach themselves to places they recognize. When every trace of the past disappears, something harder to measure disappears with it.<\/p>\n
Preservation, then, isn\u2019t just about freezing time. It\u2019s about maintaining a visual and cultural language that allows a neighborhood to evolve without erasing its face.<\/p>\n
Garber understands that balance, even as he pushes against its constraints. His team has spent months figuring out how to literally build around the preserved fa\u00e7ade, holding it upright while constructing the new interior behind it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fa\u00e7ade has been quite a project for us to preserve,\u201d he says. \u201cNot just holding it up, but building around the supports.\u201d<\/p>\n
The effort is part of a broader vision. Scozzari is one of several historic Ybor buildings Garber is redeveloping, with a five-year plan to renovate more.<\/p>\n
Taken together, the work of people like Garber and Weiner reveals the real cost of preservation\u2014not just in dollars or delays, but in attention. Forgetting is cheap. Remembering takes time, money, and intention, but it\u2019s what ties us to our cultural identity.<\/p>\n
Ybor City has always changed. Its industries rose and fell. Its streets shifted from production to nightlife, from factories to caf\u00e9s and clubs.\u00a0So the question isn\u2019t whether it should evolve; it always has. The question is whether, in doing so, it will still look like itself.<\/p>\n
At the Scozzari Brothers Building, Garber is working in painstaking detail to make it happen.<\/p>\n
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