{"id":187954,"date":"2026-03-11T23:47:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T23:47:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/187954\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T23:47:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T23:47:15","slug":"work-to-begin-on-tampas-historic-franklin-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/187954\/","title":{"rendered":"Work to begin on Tampa&#8217;s historic Franklin Street"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>TAMPA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Tampa leaders will soon work to transform downtown Franklin Street.\u00a0In the 1900s, the street was a happening spot.<\/p>\n<p>What You Need To Know<\/p>\n<p>City leaders are hoping to revitalize the one-mile stretch of downtown Franklin Street, primarily by making it more pedestrian-friendly.<br \/>\n<br \/>Tampa&#8217;s Downtown Community Redevelopment Agency is spending $6 million on the project.<br \/>\n<br \/>The Tampa Downtown Partnership will hold meetings to get input from business leaders and others in the community.<br \/>\n<br \/>City leaders hope to have the Franklin Street project completed by 2029<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFranklin Street was the main hub of Tampa,\u201d said Tampa Theatre President and CEO John Bell.<\/p>\n<p>City leaders are hoping to bring that energy back to the one-mile stretch by focusing on pedestrians. There will be upgrades to the sidewalks and lighting, with added greenspace, pocket parks and repairs to some brickwork.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think we have the opportunity for Franklin street to become that historic main street corridor,\u201d said Tampa Downtown Partnership\u2019s Kenyetta Hairston Bridges.<\/p>\n<p>Tampa\u2019s Downtown Community Redevelopment Agency is spending $6 million on the project.<\/p>\n<p>By April, they expect to begin taking bids for the design.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe first piece would be the design, and that would be looking under the ground to see the piping and what can be done,\u201d said Tampa CRA director Cedric McCray.<\/p>\n<p>Bridges said the Tampa Downtown Partnership will also conduct community meetings to gather input on the Franklin Street project.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/0311_bn9_franklin_street_projec2.jpeg\" alt=\"Tampa\u2019s Downtown Community Redevelopment Agency is spending $6 million on the project.\" class=\"hashed-image image\" img-data-alignment=\"center\" img-data-width=\"percent-hundred\" loading=\"lazy\" img-data-caption=\"Tampa\u2019s Downtown Community Redevelopment Agency is spending $6 million on the project.\" img-data-wrap-text=\"true\" img-data-editing=\"true\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Tampa\u2019s Downtown Community Redevelopment Agency is spending $6 million on the project.<\/p>\n<p>John Bell, the head of the Tampa Theatre, is excited about the street\u2019s future.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe more friendly we can make the area, the better the amenities for others, the better off we\u2019re going to be,\u201d said Bell.<\/p>\n<p>Property owner David Bailey bought a building on Franklin Street in 2006. Back then, he said he had a challenge getting the space fully rented. That&#8217;s because, in 2006, there was not much happening on Franklin Street. Things have changed in the last 20 years.<\/p>\n<p>But Bailey is hoping the street becomes even more of a place that attracts people to the area \u2013 all times of the day.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think we\u2019ve only seen the beginning of what it can do,\u201d Bailey said. \u201cI think we\u2019re going to see more of that vibrancy come back.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>City leaders hope to have the project completed by 2029.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Tampa leaders will soon work to transform downtown Franklin Street.\u00a0In the 1900s, the street was a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":187955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[274,2173,4252,276,115,135,137,136,278,729,835],"class_list":{"0":"post-187954","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-app-top-stories","9":"tag-app-traffic-transit","10":"tag-dalia-dangerfield","11":"tag-hillsborough-county","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-tampa","14":"tag-tampa-headlines","15":"tag-tampa-news","16":"tag-top-stories","17":"tag-traffic","18":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}