Darryl Shaw plans mixed-use project in East Ybor

With construction humming along at Gasworx, and Tampa dining institution Mise en Place moving into its new home at Ybor City’s western gateway, Ybor developer Darryl Shaw turns his attention east.

Shaw’s latest project is a planned two million-square-foot mixed-use redevelopment on about 30 acres stretching from the east end of the Ybor City Historic District to the East Ybor neighborhood. Shaw says it will include the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office headquarters property, which his company obtained in a land swap, and the East Seventh Avenue corridor from the Columbia Restaurant to the Crosstown Connector. The Sheriff’s Office will be moving its offices to a larger property in the Brandon area.

Shaw says the project focuses on an area with strong potential for residential development that has not seen redevelopment activity in decades. While the plans are still taking shape, he says the project will be “primarily residential” with other uses mixed in. That’s in line with his vision for Ybor, bringing in more residents to return to a neighborhood where people live, work, shop, dine, and have more daytime activities of which to partake. 

“More people moving to Ybor, that’s the goal,” Shaw says. “The goal is to become a residential mixed-use district rather than a nighttime entertainment district. That does not mean you don’t have entertainment, you certainly could. You’ll have restaurants. You’ll have bars. But we want to change people’s perception of the district from a place you just come to for nighttime entertainment to a place where people live, where they work, and they also have the opportunity to go out and enjoy themselves. That is exactly what Ybor was. People lived in the district. They worked here in the cigar factories. And they had their retail here. They had their health care here. They went out to restaurants here.”

With the East Ybor project, more people will once again be able to get their health care in Ybor. Under an agreement with Shaw, Tampa General Hospital intends to build a hospital, clinic, and medical offices in Ybor to provide primary and urgent care services, according to a late October press release. TGH intends to purchase 10 acres from Shaw’s company and has an option to buy an additional 6.45 acres. Tampa General’s development plans focus on an area west of the Crosstown Connector between East Adamo Drive and East Fourth Avenue. Office space, ground-level retail, a hotel, and residential units may also be part of the development plan for that area, according to the TGH press release. 

“At Tampa General, we know that patients value convenience and accessibility when it comes to health care,” Tampa General Executive Vice President and Chief Ambulatory Care Officer Adam Smith said in a press statement from late October. “A new Tampa General location in Ybor will ensure that patients don’t have to sacrifice quality for convenience. They can access world-class care where they live, work and visit.”

Shaw says Tampa General’s East Ybor campus will also bring health care closer to neighboring Palmetto Beach and East Tampa. And it will bring an employment base, with some of those workers hopefully deciding to live in Ybor, he says. 

Right now, Shaw’s company has submitted a zoning application for a planned development to the City of Tampa. He expects the process of securing the required government approvals for the project to stretch through 2026. Right now, there is no projected timeline for when construction will start.

“This is a longer-term vision that we’re going to take one step at a time,” Shaw says.