The Tampa Downtown Partnership wants resident and employee input on some of the key issues related to working and living in the fast-growing city's booming urban core: transportation, retail preferences, hybrid working, parking, affordability, safety and more.
The Partnership's biennial worker and resident survey, which is currently available to take online, gathers perspectives and information to help shape the future of downtown.
“There are a lot of layers in it," Tampa Downtown Partnership Director of Marketing and Design Ashly Anderson says. "It’s easy to take but it gives us so much rich information. Once we get the results, aggregate them and put them up against the trends, we give that information to the community. We give it to the City Council, to our stakeholders.”
Past survey results have had a role in launching events to activate the downtown riverfront, the outdoor market, the Glazer Children’s Museum, the Tampa Bay History Center, the extension of the TECO Line Streetcar System, the reopening and improvement of Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park, the addition of dog parks, new parking meters that accept credit card and new restaurants and retail, according to the partnership.
In 2020, residents identified national giant Target as the retailer they most wanted to see downtown. Anderson says downtown faces a retail deficit and this year's survey dives more deeply into the issue, asking for multiple retail options that residents want to see added to the mix.
With new, high-end office space coming online at the same time that many workers have shifted to remote or hybrid work, the survey also wants to gather information on how often workers are physically in the office and parking in reserved spaces.
“Give us a percentage gow often are you coming in," Anderson says. "Also, if you are using your parking space, are you only using it sometimes? That’s going to give us a lot of info on utilization in this kind of new era to help plan future parking solutions."
Transportation topics include asking TECO Line Streetcar passengers if they would still ride the system if it were no longer fare-free. Affordability questions include the maximum mortgage or rent an individual could afford to live in the downtown area. Resident questions this year also have an increased focus on living in specific neighborhoods such as the Channel District or Tampa Heights.
“There’s really a focus on the fact that downtown is a set of unique neighborhoods that make up the downtown," Anderson.
The Tampa Downtown Partnership is offering survey participants the chance to win a "staycation" that will include a hotel stay, restaurant meal and tickets to a yet-to-be-determined event.
The survey is available online at Tampa Downtown Partnership 2022 Worker and Resident Survey. Click here for results from the 2020 survey.
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