CREW Pitches Art To Sell Downtown

A group of commercial real estate professionals in the Tampa Bay region grew tired of looking at old downtown Tampa buildings sitting empty.

So it took an unconventional approach and, without government help, put wooden facades on the fronts of some of them, painting them to look like real businesses, such as ice cream shops, pet stores and shoe stores, and stringing lights across streets.

“We just did it,” says Brenda Dohring, longtime downtown booster and real estate executive. “It was our little guerilla project.”

Then they brought in artists to donate moveable sculptures, that move by touch, solar heat or by wind gusts, and placed 13 of those, some 12 feet tall, downtown as well.

The result has been a continuing series of events, including the new art museum, the children’s museum, building rehab and a new charter boat service on the Hillsborough River under a sail pavillion near the Tampa Convention Center. Another charter river boat service began in Tampa Heights, a neighborhood just north of downtown.

The program, Art Out Loud, was a brainchild of Commercial Real Estate Women, and Dohring, who is president of CREW.

“It is now shocking to see what downtown is like now at night,” Dohring says. “CREW wanted to be a catalyst.

CREW, a 150-member organization, has also donated to the riverwalk project downtown and sponsored some of the downtown flags.

“We’re a go-to organization and we want to help to make things happen,” Dohring says.

Dave Szymanski, a Tampa-based journalist, likes running 5ks, other sports and writing poetry. Comments?
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