Over the last couple of years, the Westshore District has set out to use public art to cultivate a sense of place and community in an area evolving from Tampa’s corporate office hub to a bustling, mixed-use urban neighborhood.
In early 2025, that public art campaign is in the midst of a burst of activity, with more projects and plans in the works.
Along West Shore Boulevard, vibrant blue and green art wraps with the Westshore
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Provided by Westshore AllianceArtist Gina Bernardini's vibrant artwork adorns five traffic signal boxes on West Shore Boulevard.Alliance’s “W” logo now adorn five traffic signal boxes. Designed by Tampa muralist Gina Bernardini, the signal box art depicts Westshore District scenes like a person strolling with a shopping bag and a plane in flight.
“They are very vibrant, very fun, very whimsical,” says the Alliance’s Public Art Committee Chair Paula Buffa.
At Roland Park K-8 Magnet School on Manhattan Avenue, a new mural by artist Anthony Freese features the school’s dragon mascot and highlights the international baccalaureate program’s “culture of care.”
From early February through April, a student art exhibit on display in Tampa International Airport’s main terminal will feature 45 to 50 pieces of artwork by students from Hillsborough Community College, Jefferson High School, and Roland Park K-8.
A large-scale mural going up on a parking garage at the Avion Park hotel and office complex near the airport will be viewable to passersby on Spruce and O’Brien streets. Created by Jay Giroux of Greater Public Studio, the Avion Park mural depicts the evolution of flight from birds to the airplane.
Nonprofit Walk Bike Tampa is also organizing its next “Bike Westshore” bicycle tour of the district’s public art, with a target date of March 1st.
Version 2.0
A relaunched Public Art Committee is steering the Alliance’s efforts. Buffa, a past president of the Alliance and chair of its original Public Art Committee about 15 years ago, leads the group.
“We are version 2.0,” Buffa says. “We had a public art committee about 10 to 15 years ago. Unfortunately it didn’t quite get off the ground completely.”
As part of the renewed effort, Buffa and the Alliance’s former Director of Transportation and Planning Kevin O’Hare also prepared a public art action plan. It’s a road map for promoting and investing in public art with a timeline for achieving specific goals.
Early steps included an online map on the Westshore District website with the location and description of public art installations in the Westshore District- from the giant flamingo sculpture and other art at Tampa International Airport to the mural on Kennedy Boulevard commemorating President John F. Kennedy’s trip to Tampa just days before his assassination.
In the summer of 2024, the Public Art Committee also introduced the Westshore
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Westshore AllianceWinners in the inaugural Westshore Alliance World Photography Day Photo Contest. World Photography Day Photo Contest, inviting photographers of all skill levels to submit shots of a favorite place in the Westshore District. The top-20 submissions were put on display in a pop-up gallery exhibit at the Renaissance Tampa International Plaza Hotel.
To help fund the ambitious public art initiative, the Alliance has established the nonprofit Westshore District Foundation, which accepts donations large and small with a goal of putting $100,000 a year in public and private funding toward public art projects. Fundraising efforts so far have included a “Giving Tuesday” donation drive and a 50/50 raffle golf outing.
“It’s for anybody and everybody who wants to make a donation whether it’s $5 or $5,000,” Buffa says. “It’s tax deductible. Right now, all the funds are earmarked for public art.”
The Foundation has funded a mural project at the MacDonald Training Center highlighting that nonprofit’s mission to provide vocational training to adults with disabilities. It also funded the mural at Roland Park K-8 in partnership with the Roland Park Foundation, the signal box art wraps on West Shore, and the mural at Avion Park in partnership with the complex’s developer, hotel development and management company McKibbon Hospitality.
Community partners
Collaborating with like-minded community partners is a big part of the Westshore District’s public art initiative. The nonprofit Tampa Foundation, which funds and organizes positive public art projects, was a partner on the mural projects at MacDonald Training Center and Roland Park K-8.
“They’ve really put a focus on public art in that area, which is fabulous,” says Tampa Foundation Executive Director Gennie Swenson. “They’re creating a sense of community with public art. And public art can really uplift the community. Just experiencing public art can change your mood, change the trajectory of your day.”
Swenson also praises Buffa and the Westshore Alliance’s efforts to ensure public art has a place in new development.
“She is trying to get ahead of the game with some of these developers,” Swenson says. “She’s trying to bring artists and developers together so art is not an afterthought, it’s part of their planning process.”
The Urban Land Institute Tampa Bay’s Art in Place initiative also focuses on bringing together the arts and real estate development communities to better incorporate public art in new development. Taylor Ralph, the ULI Tampa Bay board member leading the Art in Place initiative, says they've been sharing their ideas and findings with the Westshore District and looking for ways to collaborate.
“I love what they’re doing,” Ralph says. “I think that they recognize that the Westshore area has sort of gotten a bad rap over a sense of place and a feeling when you’re there. And now they’re addressing it as part of this overall plan to give Westshore a true neighborhood feel. They’re looking at public art, walkability, safety. They’re doing it in this very holistic way.”
Ralph says the Westshore Alliance’s public art initiative and Art in Place both see the valuable role public art can play in strengthening a community’s identity and the connection people have to that community.
“Art is everywhere,” Ralph says. “If it’s done well, it creates culture, it creates connectivity, and it creates a sense of place. I think those are important things for any city, any community to have. What we have found is that, oftentimes, the real estate community engages with artists toward the end of a project and tries to fit it in by making the artist work within their budget and within the design ideas they have. I think we are helping the development community understand that artists should really be engaged from the start of a project and be part of the conceptualization of what cultural assets and artistic pieces are included in a project. It’s not just about how much it costs to install but that it is unique and local art by actual artists.”
In the Westshore District, murals, sculptures, and other public art installations have a prominent place at McKibbon Hospitality’s Avion Park complex and Bromley Companies’ Midtown Tampa mixed-use community.
“We’re pretty big on art, especially local art,” says McKibbon Equities President J.B. McKibbon, IV. “At all our hotel properties, we curate all art with an emphasis on local art. We want to have an elevated spend for art and we want the money to go back to that specific community as opposed to somewhere else.”
At Avion Park, that includes the Tampa-themed mural by Vitale Brothers that adorns a wall in the patio area surrounding the outdoor heated pool at Hyatt House Westshore. It also includes artist Bruce Epstein’s sculpture “Soaring Spirits,” which celebrates the spirit of flight with two arms stretching skyward. Like “Soaring Spirits,” the new large-scale mural going up as part of the improvements and upgrades to the Avion Park parking garage takes inspiration from Avion Park’s connection to the airport and flight.
“They’re both subtle takes on the art of flight,” McKibbon says. “Based on the location, that’s the direction those pieces kind of lean. It’s something for folks to look at, to think about, to contemplate, which a lot of public art is. And it’s just cool to have. It’s something recognizable. We like to think that we do everything that we do in a first class nature. And if the budget allows we like to make the extra spend for things that are additive to the project. ‘Soaring Spirits’ and the mural going on the garage both fall into that category. We’re not expecting that we’re going to make some big return out of these investments but they do put money back into the community to local artists. They promote local art.”
Looking ahead
The Westshore Alliance is looking at a slew of ways to grow its public arts initiative.
They include adding artwork to the construction windscreens at building sites and additional signal box art, including sports-themed art wraps on the Dale Mabry corridor near Raymond James Stadium and George M. Steinbrenner Field. Westshore is also looking at potential street art projects, including having artist Anthony Freese refurbish and restore the Lincoln Gardens street mural he created at the intersection of West Laurel Street and North Grady Avenue near Jim Walter Park back in 2020.
Buffa and Westshore Alliance Executive Director Michael Maurino are also looking for opportunities to add street art to crosswalks as public art projects that can also benefit public safety.
The Westshore Alliance is also working to have its “Kinetic Ring” sculpture, which once stood at the World War I memorial at Memorial Highway and Kennedy Boulevard, brought out of storage and relocated to Cypress Point Park.
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Public Art Archive"Kinetic Ring" at its former location at Memorial and Kennedy.
The Public Art Committee also continues to look for more opportunities to promote local artists and cultivate a sense of community through mural projects and pop-up galleries.
“We don’t have an art museum in Westshore, so let’s make one, even if it’s only up for 60 or 90 days,” Buffa says.
For more information, go to Westshore Alliance, Westshore public art map, Public art action plan